SW Fox 2005 is over, Get Ready for SW Fox 2006
I just have to say publicly that I thought that this year's SW Fox was the BEST, the absolute BEST, conference that it has ever been my privilege to attend - whether as a speaker, or a delegate. Bob and Sharon Kocher, and their helpers did a fantastic job of organizing the conference which, from my view anyway, seemed to run like clockwork (I am sure Bob saw it differently but it didn't show). Things happened when, and where they were supposed to and they even managed to keep Ken Levy to his allotted time slot in the Keynote.
Keeping Ken on track is tough when he's up and running at full speed and this was the first time in quite a while that I have seen him really get into his stride - he was comfortable, confident, professional and so enthusiastic that it was contagious - real vintage Ken. His team of Calvin, Milind, Rick, Craig and Randy Brown were more than up to the task and all in all it was a great performance.
This is not to say that other speakers did not shine, because they did. A veritable galaxy of stars who presented some of the best sessions I have ever seen. It would be unfair of me to single out any one because every one was good, but I did think that Steven Black's “FoxPro is Dead, Now What do I Say?” deserves a special mention as perhaps the most original, and certainly the most thought-provoking conference session I have seen in many a year.
Those of us who were lucky enough to be there will, I am sure, agree that it was a very special conference. The absence of Drew Speedie was felt terribly by all of us, but his spirit was there in spades and I am sure that wherever he is now he approved of SW Fox 2005..
The only thing that could possibly have made it better was more people, so get with it guys - start working NOW on getting yourself to SW Fox next year (and yes, Bob has said that there will definitely be a “next year” for SW Fox).
PS: There's still time to get to Frankfurt for the European Devcon - details at http://devcon.dfpug.de/ (Continental Airlines are offering a round trip, non-stop flight from Newark to Frankfurt on 8th November and returning a week later for as little as US$396.00, the conference hotel is about US$120.00 per night and registration for the conference under US$1200.00 (999 Euro) You can do the conference and have a couple of days R&R for about $2k - for more general details about this wonderful conference see http://fox.wikis.com/wc.dll?Wiki~GreatThingsAboutDevconGermany~VFP )