John

I've been to a couple of code camps and haven't gone back.
I couldn't get into the sessions with the really good speakers, and the ones I got into had speakers who had not been well vetted.
One the other hand, I've been to a lot of the Philly.Net sessions and I have found the speakers there (including John Baird) to be of uniformly high quality and the sessions have been valuable to me.


>>>>Prediction: They will *never* attempt an online version. For one thing, it’s too hard, even in 2013. We've seen that even with OFUG.
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>>Well I think that would be a mistake because it will just die completely as attendance drops. We depend upon online webcasts and webex quite a bit here and I've had great success with it.
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>I would postulate that it is not about the disemination of information as much as it is about the egos and ulterior motives of the organizers. This is NOT MEANT as a slam, merely a statement about what drives people to spend the months necessary to organize such events. Becuase of the high price tag of such events, compare the current rise of the code camp phenomenon. You get the same level of instruction, a wide variety of topics to choose from, and it draws some of the biggest names in the business as presenters, keynoters, etc. People come from 100's sometimes 1000's of miles to present, attend, or just be involved. I have made friends all over the country just by helping to organize and present at these functions.
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>Those who would truly wish to share their knowledge with the majority and not just the few who can afford 1,000's of dollars to attend conferences, can drive an event similar to code camps where the pursuit is the knowledge and sharing, not some other motive. Plus it only costs you your time to drive and park.