Shedding Some Light

I am glad to see there are some live bloggers at FoxForward so I can hear about sessions and things going on at the conference. I am occasionally getting an instant messages from people at the conference too, which makes me want to be there even more than I did before the conference started.

Sounds like things are going well and some fun is being had by all.

I even had something added to my DAFUG to-do list {g}. Tod, interested in coming to Detroit in the near future?

Looking for the inside story? Check here:
Dave Crozier (all the way from England)
Kevin Cully (how the heck does the organizer guy have time??)
Steve Bodnar (speaking at the conference)
Tod McKenna (speaking at the conference)

There are a couple of other bloggers hanging out and speaking too so I am looking forward to reading their observations and thoughts too.

Kevin posted the tentative schedule for the FoxForward conference. Looks like a good schedule with three simultaneous sessions and several repeated sessions. No time better than today to tell Kevin you want to go to this conference and get registered.

Only 24 days until the conference kicks off in Hotlanta!

For those planning on going to FoxForward this year, you should consider registering by Saturday June 30th so you can save yourself a cool US$100. The price is only US$450 and is a terrific price considering the value you will get out of the conference. The clock is ticking…

Kevin has announced the early-bird registration for FoxForward has been extended a few days. Perfect for those who headed out early for their Memorial Day three day weekend here in the USA and forgot to send it in. Hurry up, you have until this Wednesday, May 30th.

There is no time like the present to get signed up for FoxForward, with the early bird deadline approaching in a few hours. You can register with a simple four step process so head over to the FoxForward.net and get going. Clocks are ticking…

Kevin reminded me that there are only two weeks until the deadline of April 15th to turn in your topic(s) for FoxForward 2007 presentations. So don’t procrastinate and pile the session topics Kevin’s way.

In particular he is looking for a two session overview on “Learning VFP“. I doubt you will even scratch the surface in the 3.5 hours, but you will be doing the community a service by guiding a path for those who are looking to get into VFP.

I gotta get back to evaluating all the Southwest Fox sessions submitted. I was telling Doug and Tamar that we have a near impossible task of narrowing down the sessions we can accept for the conference. All part of the fun of putting on a conference. I hope Kevin has as much fun as we are.

Over the last few weeks a few people have commented to me privately how the North American VFP conferences threaten each other in the September and October time frame. I can tell you this is not the case. Sure, in the big picture we are competitors because we are trying to convince the same customer to attend our conference. But the fact is, the conferences are very different in the type of developer we expect to attract to our venues.

Yesterday I got an email from Kevin Cully asking me a question about how we are approaching credit card processing for Southwest Fox. This is a big deal expense to a conference organizer or any business accepting credit card payments. The costs can easily determine if a conference like ours is profitable or generating a loss. I just got off the phone with the second credit card processing vendor I talked to that afternoon when his email arrived. I called Kevin and talked to him for an hour. We covered a number of common issues FoxForward and Southwest Fox face. It was a great conversation and I learned a lot from the discussion. Thanks Kevin.

When I was first contemplating taking over Southwest Fox I called Kevin and the other VFP conference organizers looking for their wisdom and to understand the battle scars. I wanted to avoid making as many mistakes as possible. Kevin, Whil Hentzen, Rainer Becker, Igor Vit, Mike and Toni Feltman, and Craig Bailey have been very supportive and are very open to my inquiries. Each and every one of them spent time advising me on the dos and don’ts. Even Advisor wants to talk to us. Hopefully it will help Southwest Fox to be a great conference, and maybe I can return the favor at some point in the future.

The key here is Kevin and I want each other’s conference to be very successful this fall. It is in the best interest of the Fox Community. So if you are worried we are out to cut each other’s throats, fear not.

I got an email from Kevin Cully this morning and see on ProFox the FoxForward 2007 conference has been formally announced for September 7-9, 2007. The conference will be held in Alpharetta, Georgia. All the details for the conference including the call for speakers, hotel, and registration costs can be found on the conference Web site.

Congrats Kevin and as I mentioned in my email to you this morning, I hope FoxForward is a huge success!