cf.Objective() 2011: Doing things a bit differently and need your help!

Oh yeah, we're still here, baby!

cf.Objective() 2011 is on, but we need your help. This year rather than broadcast the same old brute-force "Call for Speakers" concept, we've decided to do things a bit differently. We've got a new application up, courtesy of Matt Woodward and Bob Silverberg, and we're requesting community input on the topics you'd like to see at the conference this year.

(As an aside, this explains our delays this year. New board, new technology, and a new way of doing things. It's taken some time to get all our ducks in a row and they're finally quacking their little brains out... let's not disappoint them? I hear bored ducks can actually make quite the ruckus!)

Please, please, please, please! (or: The WHAT)

So please go here and suggest topics. Any topics. Well, any CF/Adobe relevant topics, anyway. Any level of expertise, any technical level. I can't (read: won't) make any promises except for this: We'll put on the same top-notch, highly professional conference we have every year for the last 5 years. We just want to see what YOU want for content this time. But we really really need to gauge the need out there this year and without your input we can't do that.

And please tell your friends. Tweet it. Facebook it. Plurk it. DIGG it. Whatever. But we need to get the word out and get as MANY ColdFusion professionals contributing to the data. I can't stress enough how important this is to the ongoing success of cf.Objective(). Why is this so important? Why? Why? Why?

The WHY

Well, here it is, straight up: The primary motivation for doing things this way this time is, to be honest, the demise of CFUnited. CFUnited left a huge hole in the ColdFusion educational world, especially for government. However CFUnited also served a somewhat different audience than we have, traditionally, served. Now, before anyone spontaneously combusts at the thought of cf.Objective() becoming a beginner/intermediate conference, that ain't gonna happen... exactly.

The HOW

We're looking at adding a track, a pre-conference, an unconference or any number of other solutions or combinations that would allow us to serve the disenfranchised client base that CFUnited left behind... but we can't do that till we know what the interest levels are for at least intermediate topics, but if we had enough call for it we'd consider doing some entry-level content as well. We're already adding a track for those who aren't quite at a skill level typical of our traditional audience but want to be... something like "So you got no wings but you want to fly?"

What we need to determine is whether we need to make the conference longer (more days or more hours in the day), wider (more tracks, more simultaneous sessions), or some other approach entirely. But we can't do that at all until we know what kind of content people are wanting us to deliver. We have the resources and the connections to deliver whatever you want or need, and you're our customers. So we're asking you: What information can we collect for you that will make your workdays smoother and your off-time so much sweeter?

The END

That's it, that's all, folks. We need you to contribute some input to the conference so that we can make it the best, the smartest, the hippest, rockin'est ColdFusion conference in the whole day-gone world... well, except Australia because we don't want to compete with cf.Objective(ANZ) because that'd be like shooting yourself in the foot. Right? So unless you're from there, or somewhere near there, like New Zealand or Antarctica or something, please go fill out our survey. Well, I mean unless you would RATHER travel for 13 weeks and spend the whole time standing upside down... ;)

OK, seriously, please, go to Engage and do your thing!

Laterz!