The Venue:

Thanks to Shawn Dunning and NC State University College of Textiles for an awesome building with unbelievable WIFI and AudioVisual equipment!  For conference organizers, if you can hook-up with a local college or university like NC State, then this is a great way to go!  The extra classrooms were very handy in providing extra learning opportunities for Hands-On Labs participants—with no additional overhead.

Adobe Keynote:

Adobe brought its best available speakers to NCDEVCON.  The event also provided the first opportunity for Adobe’s ColdFusion Product team to introduce its new Product Manager — Rakshith Naresh.  Adobe Evangelist, Terry Ryan, did the keynote introduction + provided an overview of where Adobe was headed in the web and mobile space.  This overview and vision was much appreciated!   So, there were a lot of sessions and most of them can be viewed online via NC State College of Textiles Video Services (again outstanding facility!): go.ncsu.edu/ncdevcon2011

There were some links to presentations, demo scripts, or .pdfs which are available on presenter’s blog OR at the Adobe Groups Online presentation repository.

Adobe Sessions & Speakers:

• What’s Next in “Zeus” (the next release of ColdFusion) – Awdhesh Kumar @kawdhesh
• Hands-On Labs - Getting Started with ColdFusion - Josh Adams @jladams97
• Introduction to jQuery Mobile - Ray Camden@cfjedimaster
• Underused, Under-appreciated, and Under-loved features of ColdFusion - Ray Camden
• “Advanced ORM” – Hemant Khandelwal @khandelwalh
• ColdFusion Builder Extensions - Ramchandra Kulkarni
• Hands-On Labs - Build your First Flash Mobile App - Terry Ryan @tpryan (Terry’s Android App “NCDEVCON Schedule” )

Adobe Table in the Sponsor's Lounge

Adobe community team and ColdFusion Product team engineers staffed a table at NCDEVCON. There was a new T-shirt to giveaway, dubbed the “CF is Da Bomb”. This was a new T-shirt designed by Adam Lehman’s wife (Rachel). There were 15% off coupons available to attendees looking to upgrade/purchase Adobe software. Attendees also got check out some of the news tablets loaded with mobile apps that were created Flash Builder 4.5.

 Evening Social + Free Software Raffle:

Adobe gave out lots of software and promotional items at NCDEVCON, but attendees had to be present for the drawings at the evening social event and the event wrap-up session.  Prizes were drawn by the NCDEVCON organizers.

Congrats to the Winners:

FlashBuilder 4.5 Premium (includes ColdFusion Builder 2)

• Phillip Molaro
• William Lee Cherry
• Michael Schore
• Jonathan Morgan
• Jose Galdamez
• Andrew Duvall
• Birgit Pauli-Haack
• Sam Singer Jr
• Christian Abad
• Nancy Schipon

CF 9 Standard:

• Nolan Erck
• Kip Robinson

Creative Suite 5.5 Master Collection

• Andrew Abbott
• James Locus

I personally donated a boxed copy of Flash Builder 4.5 to www.5bucksischange.com.
“5 Bucks is change” is an initiative that supports several “micro-charities” through public donations of $5 increments.  Janet Kennedy volunteers for this organization and is based in Raleigh, NC.   As their marketing and social media person, Janet raffled-off the Flash Builder 4.5 software to the NCDEVCON attendees raising over $400.  The NCDEVCON staff  matched that amount for a total gift of $800 that will then be given to various micro-charities.

More Photos:

Wrap Up:

NCDEVCON certainly provided a great opportunity for developers to get up-to-date with the latest web and mobile tools — And Adobe Was There!  But, NCDEVCON was also good for Adobe! While Adobe is expected to be out amongst its developer community, the event also was the first chance for Adobe’s ColdFusion team and evangelists to meetup, since the program transition to India.  Supporting regional conferences is good for the community eco-system; good for business; and, good PR.  We hope to be at NCDEVCON next year.  

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