Devdays 2005 is over -- or just about. We completed our Devdays tours in Durban on Tues and the last 2 speakers left for home yesterday -- after a visit to uShaka Marine World and a very spontaneous decision to take off their cloths and run into the sea.
We still have some work to do in that we need capture the evaluation results and analyze what was good, bad and ugly. We already picked up certain things from the events like catering but we need to look at things further. We generally look to break down into 2 areas – 1 based on the technical value and the other on the logistical aspects (invites, venue, catering etc)
The other thing we might have to do is go PE (I think) for a mini Devdays. A couple of companies want to see VS05 in action so we might go there in the next couple of months.
Some general stuff I found. Most attendees seem to like the traditional “developer' sessions more. That is things on ASP.NET, Winforms etc. The VSTS stuff seems to attract a bit of a different audience and the evaluation of these sessions appear to be on different criteria. I also seem to find that showing off new technology (totally new, not just a new version) can be tough in that the audience has never really had a hands-on experience of the environment so explaining (or actually understanding) certain concepts becomes more difficult? Do you agree.
Finally I am looking for any additional feedback on Devdays.
BTW - I was suppose to do 40 minutes of demos in the keynotes in JHB (I did them in CPT and DBN). Most of what I was suppose to show was demo'ed in the other sessions (except for some simple SQL Server demos). The main reason for doing them was that attendees going to one track might not get to see anything of what is available in another track (although it does seem like quite a few people went to the 2 morning ASP.NET sessions and then went to the afternoon Windows Forms sessions)
I get asked this a few times and this article helps in answering many of those questions. Check http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnvs05/html/vstsmodel.asp
Last reminder. We start Devdays next week. Register and tell a buddy. www.devdays.co.za. I have had some “interesting” experiences getting ready for my sessions. From Devdays nightmares (literally) to hard drive crashes and blue screens of death (due to a video driver). Holding thumbs also pans out fine in the next 2 weeks. We start off with a 6am flight on Monday to Cape Town.