A crowd of people around at all times. Late nights, little sleep. Excitement. New things to see and learn.

Sounds like Devcon? Not at my house! With last week’s new 7 pound 4 ounce addition I had all the excitement, crowds, and lack of sleep I could handle. Still I did wonder how the world “out there” was going in general and how Devcon 2006 in particular was shaping up.

Seems like a short while ago we were leaving Devon 2005 in Phoenix trying to make sense of all the comments. A few things were immediately clear. One was that Devcon was becoming stale. We know the #1 reason people go is for product and technical information (The #2 reason people go is to network). For some the content was repetitive, and others were outgrowing the information on offer.

We needed new topics. Not only to appeal to the repeat visitor, but also to recognize the changing environment FileMaker operates in (such as the internet). We needed to add depth, so that advanced users could learn more, while retaining enough basics for newer users to get value as well. And we needed to re-focus the whole show on product, technology and networking. Lastly, we needed to take advantage of the expertise of the attendees, developing ways where we can collaborate to share info instead of just showing info.

So we tried things. We experimented. We added a new track on web publishing. We put in expert workshops for advanced users. We continued our special interest meetings of the past. We asked our engineers to show things “under the hood”. Most important of all, we decided to give those people who make the commitment to travel all the way to Devcon a glimpse into the future direction of FileMaker. Finally we minimized the non-technical aspects of the event.

Then we waited. Would it work? I was on pins and needles. (OK, truth be told, I was up at 3 am with nothing else to think about!). So as soon as Devon was over I started pinging people coming back to see what they thought.

Here is what I’ve heard so far:

Overall sounds like we are headed on the right track. People appreciated the openness of FileMaker, especially our coverage of future technology in the main session. The “under the hood” information was a hit as well, especially with our advanced developers. The workshop experiment seems to have worked TOO well -- they were so popular that many were “sold out”. We’ll need to see how we can expand on the workshops next year. The event location seemed like a winner. Plenty of space, nice environment. However we might want to vary the meals a bit more (steak anyone)?

Our overall focus on “Keep it Technical” was great. But a couple of people thought a bit too much technology in the closing session? By that point half-the audience is nursing hangovers. Perhaps could keep that at a lighter level.

FileMaker FSA Partners meeting went well. (Partners are a small group of some of our most experienced and influential 3rd party developers) Focus at this meeting was also on technology which was great for many. But I heard some people here actually wanted more discussion on marketing. How best to handle this division? I’ll have to consider. I should note this blog you are reading was launched primarily to address this need.

Web definitely a hot topic at Devcon 2006. We’ve had FileMaker web solutions for a while so what is really new here? Well, the emergence of new technologies (PHP, Web Viewer) helps. But also the web has moved far beyond the hype stage and is on the radar screen of a critical mass of organizations.

Speaking of the web, I read some great blogs by Cal Evans of Zend. I almost thought I was there.

http://devzone.zend.com/node/view/id/833
and
http://devzone.zend.com/node/view/id/815

Now these are just initial Devcon impressions culled from a limited number of discussions. Each year we survey all the Devcon attendees. It takes a while to pull all the surveys together and give them a thorough analysis but then we know in detail what people thought. Armed with this info we start planning the next Devcon. I’ll hold back judgment til I see the full picture, but it does seem, at least initially, like we are making progress.

As anyone who has children knows, small, steady bits of progress add up quickly. And before you know it Devcon becomes bigger than you ever though possible -- WAY too big to pick up -- and is asking to borrow the keys to your car.