Shedding Some Light

Marketing, marketing, marketing.

The organizers of Southwest Fox are gradually cranking up the marketing machine and are asking for your help to spread the word. We are looking for past attendee testimonials to post on the Southwest Fox site, and for those with a Fox related Web site to link to our site. Help spread the word!

Check out our banner developed for us by fellow Fox’er Dave Aring…

More details on how you can help, along with directions to create a link using our new banner graphic are available on the Southwest Conference Promote Conference page.

Speaker submissions look great and registration starts May 1st.

Thanks in advance for helping us out!

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.

Just a quick reminder that the deadline for speaker proposals is fast approaching for Southwest Fox 2007. The deadline for proposals is 8:00am Eastern Daylight Time on Monday March 26, 2007. To be considered, send your bio, between three and six session proposals, and a digital photo for publicity purposes to: speakers AT swfox DOT net (correcting all the intentionally spelled out parts for the email address).

All the details, expectations, instructions to make a proposal, and the selection process can be found on the Southwest Fox Speakers page. Just click on the link for “Call for Speakers.”

Proposals from great speakers have already arrived (as good as getting early birthday gifts) and we are anticipating the selection process to be quite difficult, but this is part of the fun in assembling the best Southwest Fox yet!

Today we posted the open call for speakers for Southwest Fox…

Southwest Fox 2007 (October 18-21 in Mesa, AZ, www.swfox.net) is looking for speakers. The conference is focused on Visual FoxPro and sessions should fit into one of the following tracks:

• Working with Sedna and SP2: This track will cover the new features and changes introduced in Sedna and in VFP 9 Service Pack 2.
• Extending VFP (including VFPX, COM, etc.): The sessions in this track will cover technologies that extend VFP’s capabilities, such as those in VFPX.
  
• Reviewing VFP Fundamentals: This track will appeal to those newer to VFP, whether they are just moving up from earlier versions of FoxPro, or coming from other languages.
• Integrating VFP (with SQL Server, .NET, etc.): This track will look at using VFP together with other products, including back-end servers, Automation servers, and .NET.
• Managing the Software Business: This track will offer business advice to VFP developers, including managing clients, the software development process, and so forth.

If you’re interested, click on the Call for Speakers link at http://www.swfox.net/speakers.html. Please read the entire document before submitting session proposals. All proposals are due by March 26; speakers and topics will be announced May 1, 2007. Send any questions to speakers@swfox.net.

Southwest Fox 2007

October 18-21, 2007
Arizona Golf Resort and Conference Center in Mesa, Arizona
http://swfox.net

It is our pleasure to announce the fourth annual Southwest Fox Conference, presenting the latest in Microsoft Visual FoxPro development techniques, new changes in VFP 9.0 SP2, Sedna Components, and interop with other technologies with sessions from some of the best and the brightest VFP speakers.

This highly acclaimed and popular conference is the perfect venue for VFP developers interested in learning more about VFP, further refining their software development skills, learning how to better run a consulting firm or IT department, and being a better software craftsman. To this end, there will be sessions available in the following tracks:

1) Working with Sedna and SP2:
This track will cover the new features and changes introduced in Sedna and in VFP 9 Service Pack 2.

2) Extending VFP (including VFPX, COM, etc.):
Sessions in this track will cover technologies that extend VFP’s capabilities, such as those in VFPX.

3) Reviewing VFP Fundamentals:
This track will appeal to those newer to VFP, whether they are just moving up from earlier versions of FoxPro, or coming from other languages, or are new to a specific area of VFP.

4) Integrating VFP (with SQL Server, .NET, etc.):
Sessions in this track will look at using VFP together with other products, including back-end servers, Automation servers, and .NET.

5) Managing the Software Business:
This track will offer business advice to VFP developers, including managing clients, the software development process, and so forth.

The call for speakers will go out shortly and the initial speakers and their sessions will be published when registration opens on May 1st.

If you are interested in more details for the conference you can send them to info@swfox.net.

You will also notice that Southwest Fox is under new management. After three very successful years under Bob Kocher’s management, Southwest Fox is now being organized by Visual FoxPro MVPs Rick Schummer, Doug Hennig and Tamar E. Granor. We look forward to continuing the great traditions of Southwest Fox, and building on some new ones too.

More details can be found at www.swfox.net.

We look forward to seeing you in Arizona in October!