Virtual Conferences

A few weeks back, I attended quite a few sessions of Emarcadero/Codegear’s Coderage III virtual conference. I’ve been to a few live conferences before, and have always found them very useful. This was my first virtual conference, and I must say I found it was almost as good as the real thing. There were a few audio issues, but nothing too distracting. As with all conferences, be they live or virtual, some of the sessions were great, others not so great, but I suppose that depends on what interests you. On the whole the sessions I attended were well presented, and hit the mark. I’m going to make a few observations though, so that perhaps Coderage IV might be even better.

• Time Zones. There were a lot of sessions I’d have liked to attend, but at 4 in the morning, I also like to sleep. Now I know however you play this, there’s always going to be someone who’ll complain that 4 in the morning is time they should be in bed, but since the sessions were recorded, why not repeat them twice, even three times so that anyone in any time zone can find a decent timeslot? I know that you can get the replays after the event, but not the same thing..
• I felt the sessions were slightly too short. Or perhaps the subjects that were covered were just too vast for the time allotted. I’m sure there’ll be someone who says the sessions were too long though.
• Attendance was a little disappointing. Does that reflect a decline in the popularity of Delphi, or just the fact that a lot of people don;t like virtual conferences? Has anyone ever attended other virtual conferences? If so, how was the attendance there?

Another thing I noticed during this conference. From a technical point of view, being a trainer is much easier than being a day to day developer. I’m not saying the presenters at Coderage did not know their stuff. I’m sure that they do. It’s just that when giving a session of 45 minutes, you are forced to basically present glorified Hello World applications. You just scratch the surface.

I’m just trying to say that the technical side of things, while important (you can’t do a 45 minute session about something you know nothing about), is only a small part of what you need, to be a successful presenter. In my opinion, one of the best presenters I’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to, was Lino Tadros. His sessions, while having the requisite technical knowledge, had that X factor, that made them interesting, whatever the subject covered. The sign of a good teacher.

Does he still do Delphi, or has he completely gone over to the dark side? If so, he’s sorely missed!