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Tale of a Code Camp South Florida Code Camp 2006, February 4th, 2006 DeVry University, Miramar, FL We just wrapped up an incredible Code Camp! It was three days of events with Russ Fustino hosting pub clubs Thursday night in Miami at Mangos, Friday night in Weston at Tarpon Bend for speakers and volunteers and again Saturday night for attendees. As usual his camera was busy and he has posted pictures on his website at http://www.russtoolshed.net. Although it is hard to say exactly how many attended the code camp, at one point in the morning I counted 385 in the rooms but we know that some people did not attend all day and just went to a few sessions in the afternoon or morning. Over all there were between 400 and 500 in and out during the day. Over 600 registered. Some sessions were packed with people having to sit on the floor and we did get at least one complaint about that but the comments and evaluations were overwhelmingly positive. I tried a couple of "Birds of a Feather" type of sessions. It worked well for one on DotNetNuke where it directly followed a nuke presentation but the other on conversion to asp.net 2.0 did not have a critical mass. It did work out as a few of us had a good discussion on web services and if they were really changing the world. The event could not have been put on without our board consisting of Shervin Shakibi (newly minted Microsoft Florida Regional Director!), Ed Hill, Morgan Baker, Alex Funkhouser, Joe Healy (www.devfish.net) and me. As always with all Florida Code Camps, Joe Healy is a driving force to get speakers, provide the website and was able to bail us out with some funding shortfall! The other hero in this is DeVry University. We have been having one of our monthly meetings at the Miramar campus for the past few years and Ed Hill, a CIS professor is our main contact person there. For this event the DeVry community helped plan and execute the code camp including Julio Torres (President), Terry Suess (Director Marketing and Community Outreach), Randy DeWitt (Dean of Business and CIS) numerous other staff members and student volunteers. We have made contacts and DeVry campuses across the nation are potentially available for user group meetings and code camps. Let me know if you want to contact a DeVry university in your city! The other impressive thing is the speakers that came from all over the state (Tallahassee, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville) to speak and support us, thanks! You can see all of them on the code camp website: www.fladotnet.com/codecamp. Our home boy, co-founder of Florida .net, now famous, living in New Jersey and working for Infragistics came to S. Florida to talk at Code Camp 2006 and brought a "contribution" that helped fund much of the food costs!! Thanks Jason and Infragistics! Links to pictures of the event are on the Florida .net website www.fladotnet.com. Dave Noderer Computer Ways, Inc. www.computerways.com www.fladotnet.net Learn how to organize your very own code camp by attending the INETA Live! webcast on March 22, 2006. (Feel free to use this banner and that link on your user group's site.)