devLink 2008 - In the books

Another year and another devLink Technical Conference completed. I think the event went pretty well considering we were in a new facility and different city. The devLink team did a great job and I was glad to see that many of the attendees noticed. At the closing keynote the crowd gave them a standing ovation which was very nice.
We have not conducted the post conference review yet, but I figured I would open up my blog to suggestions from you, to give us some more feedback. What did you like, dislike, want to see at devLink 2008. I had an opportunity to ask these questions during lunch on Saturday and received some thought provoking responses. We are going to discuss all the ideas, but just a few are noted below. Please let me know anything you would like to add.

Create a Wiki or Forum to keep the Open Spaces discussion going after the event.
This is a great idea and something being considered. Alan Stevens did a tremendous job running Open Spaces and kept all the content generated. I cannot give you any firm answer on what we will do, but continuing the discussion beyond just the here and now of an Open Space is definitely something worthwhile. We will be discussing this at the post conference review.

Find a way that attendees can help plan the schedule by selecting their preferred sessions and assigning times
In the past, we have tried to create as balanced a schedule as possible. It is definitely a challenge to keep engaging sessions spread evenly throughout the day. Some topics are in high demand and will draw a crowd away from other sessions just as valuable. We are going to look at this and see if we can determine a way to let attendees have more say in the schedule. Maybe this will be repeating popular sessions or something else. I welcome your suggestions.

Why don't you record all the devLink sessions so people can view a session they may have wanted to attend, but it conflicted with another session.
Unfortunately, this is a money issue. Recording sessions is an expensive endeavor. While a handheld camera can do the job, the quality would be low and I question how much benefit people would get from it. We will see if there is some way we can do this, but no promises unless we have a windfall of sponsorship.

If you charged $100 could you do more with the conference?
Yes, we could probably do more. The price devLink paid for each person attending devLink 2008 averaged $150. Most of our costs are covered by sponsors who have an interest in the development community and gaining visibility to attendees. If we were to charge $100 per attendee the sponsorship dollars could go farther. Our current price is $50 per person and we are considering raising the price to help keep the conference funded. What are your thoughts on that?

Why is the conference only $50?
The price of $50 was chosen based on the desire to make devLink affordable to anyone in the IT industry. Too many people never get to attend an event like devLink because most of them cost $1000 or more. So here is the formula, a good technical book costs you around $50 and you should get more value from devLink than you would from a single technical book. I think if you bought two books you would probably still benefit from devLink more than the books you purchased, so $100 is probably reasonable. If we had to charge attendees more than $100, I think we are now outside of some people's ability to pay and we will no longer have the event.

I hope this sparks some ideas that can help us make devLink 2009 even better. I know we will continue with the Open Spaces based on it's success. Let me know what you are thinking.