>Hello Eric.
>
>I would also add that it seems as though the members of the MS developer community that are most eager to jump on the latest bandwagon are those among us that make a pretty good living doing nothing but writing and speaking (and teaching) about new technologies. It only benefits those "Acedemics", as I call them,
>
>I am not fishing for an argument, but I can tell you that you are WAY off base if you think that anyone can make a decent living doing nothing but writing and speaking.
>
>Most of the conferences do not pay you anything for speaking - all they do is cover your airfare and accommodation expenses at the conference. The exception is the Advisor Devcon where they pay you a $500 honorarium. Considering that it takes me between 40 and 60 hours to prepare a new session, at that rate I would make more if I wnet out to work at Burger King < s >.
>
>The same goes for writing books and magazine articles. Those of us that do it, don't do it for the money because when I calculate the amount of time I have into writing the books and the total amount of my royalties, I probably earned about $0.25 for all my hard work < s >.

Now you know why I don't speak at any confernces. IMV, the real value comes with connecting with other folks like you. Anyone who think that they can make a comparable living by speaking or writing, is way off base.