Hi, Rick,

I agree with you, CodeCamps and full conferences both have their place.

I can only speak for the events I've participated/spoken at (Boston, Philly, NJ), but here is my two cents:

- Microsoft ROI on ANY community event is in the free evangelism their developer products receive

- "Facilities, food, swag, office space"...it's all small potatoes when you compare it against hundreds getting free education to bring back to their job. It all trickles up and down in the long run, and MS knows this.

- There's overlap (as I'm sure you're aware) - several professional speakers and authors are doing both professional conferences as well as CodeCamps. (Rod, Cathi Gero, you, INETA speakers like Miguel Castro).

- Yes, CodeCamps are fun. But I don't think the agenda's main focus is fun and off-topic content. I think part of that just comes from it being a weekend event. The speakers are more a mixture, but most sessions are conducted by MVPs, authors, speakers, and/or people who are well-known in the community. I did a session on reporting methodologies in a distributed environment, which was basically the same talk I gave at DevTeach. I try to treat it as a professional conference.

Again, I can only speak from my own experiences, but I've been surprised how comparable the content and agenda resembles other conferences.

Since they're regionally run, some are going to appear more business-like than others. Boston was fairly formal.

- I think a good # of people who have presented at these are dedicated to continuing with CodeCamps, and if anything, are willing to do more to help promote them.

Kevin