Shedding Some Light

I’m so thrilled to announce that Steven Black is speaking at Southwest Fox 2011. Doug, Tamar, and I have been trying to get him as a speaker every year we have organized the conference. As Doug blogged, Steve Black is one of my favorite speakers of all-time. His sessions are lively, thought-provoking, and entertaining, which is a killer combination. Steve hasn’t been to Southwest Fox since 2005 due to other commitments, so he’s been sorely missed.

You can check out Steve’s sessions by heading over to Steve’s Southwest Fox speaker page (linked above). I think you will find his sessions are more must-see topics to the conference. And I thought the schedule was already going to be difficult to figure out this year, now it just got more complicated, but in a very good way.

If you have not registered for the conference yet, there is no time like the present moment! We still have a few Saver discounts remaining. More details on the registration page.

Only 35 days until we gather in Gilbert!

Catching up on some administrative work today.

Back in July White Light Computing randomly selected two winners from the list of registered attendees to Southwest Fox 2011. Each year since 2006 White Light has offered $300 of scholarships to people who are registered for the conference. You can read all about the scholarships for the 2011 conference on the Southwest Fox Scholarships page.

This year we offered two people a $150 scholarship.

Normally our marketing director (my daughter) pulls the names, but she was out of town on vacation. In her place my wife conducted the drawing. The drawing was done by piling in all the names of the people registered by July 1st. First she pulled out ten names. From this smaller pile five names were drawn, and then the final two people. Interestingly, in the final five were three people from the same company as the winners.

The winners are:

1. Joel Leach from Memorial Business Systems
2. Stacey Violett of Black Mountain Software

Both of these individuals have been to majority of the past Southwest Fox Conferences, and both of their companies are sending more than one individual to this year’s conference. They certainly increased their odds to be winners.

Many thanks to both Joel and Stacey for their continued support of Southwest Fox over the years. And thanks to all who have registered for Southwest Fox 2011 so far. Your support for our conference is truly appreciated and critical to making the conference a success each year.

If you are interested in registering for the conference, feel free to contact me. I am always open to discussing how I can convince you to attend the best Visual FoxPro developer conference in North America, Southwest Fox!

Speakers and sessions for Southwest Fox 2011 have been announced. The conference features four half-day pre-conference sessions and more than 26 main conference sessions in five tracks. Whether you’re still working only with Visual FoxPro or extending Visual FoxPro with other tools, you’ll have no trouble finding plenty of sessions to enhance your skills and widen your horizons.

As for our presenters, initially we have lots of Southwest Fox veterans like Menachem Bazian, Rick Borup, Steve Ellenoff, Tamar Granor, Uwe Habermann, Doug Hennig, Venelina Jordanova, Jody Meyer, Jim Nelson, myself, Eric Selje, and Christof Wollenhaupt. We also have three Southwest Fox freshman: Steve Bodnar, Kevin Ragsdale and Tuvia Vinitsky.  We are hopeful registrations will allow us to bring in additional speakers as well.

I am looking forward to sitting in on lots of sessions if time allows like last year. I am presenting a couple of new sessions:

1) How Craig Boyd Makes Me a Hero!

2) Programming Standards and Guidelines for Software Craftmanship

White Light Computing is a Platinum Sponsor again this year. We will have a booth to show off our developer tools and services again so please stop by.

You can follow us in Twitter: @SWFox. If you check out who @SWFox is following you will find our list of speakers who are on Twitter.

And there are still plenty of surprises up our sleeves (some we don’t even know ourselves yet) to entice you to come to the best Visual FoxPro conference in North America!

Please help us get the word out about the conference by yelling from the mountain tops. We certainly appreciate everyone who blogs, or records podcasts, or tweets, or Facebooks (is that the proper verb?) about their positive experiences at past Southwest Fox conferences. An email will be sent to everyone who has attended Southwest Fox in the past on June 1st. Send us an email if you are interested in getting on the list. (info [AT] swfox.net)

Registration opens June 1.

Only 152 days until we gather in Gilbert!

This is just a quick reminder that session proposals for Southwest Fox 2011 are due by this Monday, March 28. For details, read the Call for Speakers document.

Now off to get mine polished up and sent in.

The Ceil Silver Ambassador Fund brings a developer to the Southwest Fox conference in the United States as an ambassador for the developers in his or her country. This gives the recipient the opportunity to meet and share experiences with developers attending Southwest Fox and gives other attendees the opportunity to learn about VFP development in the recipient’s country. Please see the Ambassador Fund page to get more information on the nomination process or to learn how to contribute to it.

The Ambassador selection committee consists of Southwest Fox organizers Rick Schummer, Tamar Granor, and Doug Hennig, former Ambassadors Emerson Santon Reed, Cesar Chalom, and Bernard Bout, and VFP community members Christof Wollenhaupt, Rick Bean, and Alex Feldstein.

We are looking for nominations from the VFP community for the 2011 recipient. To nominate someone you think is deserving to be selected, please email their name and a brief list of their contributions to the VFP community to ambassadorfund AT swfox.net. Names must be submitted no later than April 15, 2011.

Today we released the Call for Speakers for Southwest Fox 2011. Anyone interested in presenting should visit the Call for Speakers page on the Southwest Fox website, read the complete Call for Speakers document (linked from that page), and download the proposal submission application. Session proposals are due by March 28.

As in the past few years, we plan to offer a good selection of topics in core VFP development, extending VFP, using VFP with other technologies, and VFPX, as well as technology sessions to help VFP developers become better developers, not just more expert at VFP.

If you think you have something to say to the VFP community, please submit session proposals, even if you’ve never spoken at a conference before. Our community is strengthened when more people take an active role. Do be aware that speaking at a conference is a serious commitment. Even for experienced speakers, preparing a new session takes 40-80 hours. Doing it well at the conference calls for several rehearsals beforehand, too. So make sure you can commit the necessary time–the Call for Speakers lays out all the deadlines.

We’re looking forward to seeing what you all come up with. Reading through the proposals we receive each year is really exciting, and choosing among them is always a challenge.

Mark your calendars! Southwest Fox 2011 will take place on October 26-29, 2011 with a post-conference event on the afternoon of October 29 and morning of October 30. Note a few changes this year:

• The shift not only from the second week in October to the last week (to avoid running into Jewish holy days).
• The shift from our usual Thursday to Sunday dates to Wednesday to Saturday this year (so you can get home in time for Halloween).
• The post-conference starts Saturday afternoon rather than the next day.

By the way, the post-conference event is guaranteed to blow your socks off, so you’ll definitely want to consider staying the extra day. Stay tuned for more details.

There is still time before September 1st to get in on the Early-Bird Registration for Southwest Fox 2010! The Early-Bird discount saves you $50 over our regular conference registration.

This year’s conference, held October 14-17, includes 15 speakers, 26 different sessions in the main conference, 4 pre-conference topics, and a free one-day VFP to Silverlight post-conference workshop. Plus, if you’re a member of a registered VFP user group, when you attend Southwest Fox, your user group receives $25.

In case you haven’t heard, we made a change in venue back in late July. The conference moved to a new location: SanTan Elegante Conference & Reception Center/Legado Hotel. Room rates are “run of the house” at $119 a night. You can find all the details at http://swfox.net/hotel.aspx. The room block for the conference is held through September 13th; after that room availability and pricing is determined by the hotel.

We are planning to add a “Show Us Your App” bonus session based on the success of the session the last couple of years.

Got suggestions? info@swfox.net Got questions? info@swfox.net Got registrations? register@swfox.net, or you can call the Geek Gatherings’ World Headquarters at 586.254.2530.

Read about the registration process and get the registration application here: http://www.swfox.net/register.aspx

Follow the news about the conference on our blog: http://swfox.net/blog/index.htm

Use our brochure to convince your boss (or spouse or SO) to let you go: http://www.swfox.net/brochure.pdf

Only 48 days until we meet in Gilbert. Hope to see you there.