On Sun, Sep 2, 2012 at 6:44 PM, Sytze de Boer <sytze.kiss@gmail.com> wrote:

> Friends

>

> For many years, I have wanted to attend a conference such as the SW Fox

> 2012

> For me, this is a very long trip, and airfares alone as substantial.

>

> In your opinion, are these conferences worth while.

>

> --

> Kind regards

> Sytze de Boer

> Kiss Software

Some things in life are worth doing at least once. I think a

professional development conference is a good example. I went to my

first Devcon in Ft. Lauderdale Florida at my own expense and I thought

it was worth every penny.

Some tangibles you get at a conference include:

Some faces w/ names - I feel better shooting Ed or Ted an email out of

the blue with a question since we've at least met face to face... They

probably hate it, but for me it works out great... <g>

You get a better feel for where you are professionally and how good

you are at your craft. Some people are always newbies trying to get up

to speed quickly, some are rock stars that do mind boggling things,

some are like most of us in between... being a lone wolf most of my

career it was good to figure that out... I realized I was a lot better

at Fox than I thought, but had a *long* way to go to be truly elite

status (and I was already MCP at the time).

You will see/hear people talk about doing things you might have only

vaguely heard about, but at a conference you just might see it in

action. I thought I knew what Fox/computers were capable of, then sit

down for a beer with someone that is ho-hum about something that will

make you drool... you will walk away with many instances of "if only I

can work something like that into my system" or "I gotta go back to my

room and play around with that!!"... for me it was web services and

the TRY/CATCH technique that had just been implemented...

Rick can probably back me up here (or contradict me), but it's a lot

of fun! Devcon had a lot of glitz to it, but they tried to entertain

you (or allow you to blow off steam). I would think (never having

been) that SW Fox is more to-the-point, which is probably a good

thing.

Cons:

It's expensive... but if your tax laws work at all like ours, you can

write off a lot of it as a biz expense, you just have to front the

money which for some of us can be daunting... as it happened in my

case I had a chunk of severance pay sitting around so treated myself

to a Devcon.

There's a good chance you won't use much of anything you see or learn

there... a lot of us are entrenched in what we are doing, or our

products are just too shrink wrapped already to roll out something

radically different, at least right away. You will be frustrated with

all these new toys you know how to do, or are willing to put effort

into learning more about, but they could easily end up sitting on the

shelf despite your efforts.

Stress - you are away from your job or business and especially in your

case, supporting remotely isn't always the easiest thing to do, even

more so when you are tired from running around all day and night at

the conference. Make sure you have a solid platform in place or at

least a good support infrastructure to keep things going in your

absence...

Worth it? Hard to say, but I doubt you would regret going...

--

Matt Jarvis

Eugene, Oregon USA

_______________________________________________

Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com

Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox

OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech

Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox

This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/CAPT54rYTExhq3furBDenDb6=OCukf0Oay1WrcPXMLW1x2jTCYA@mail.gmail.com

** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.