Check it out here.

Register now!

The latest version of the Flex SDK posters will be mailed to all attendees of 360|Flex. They won’t be printed by next month unfortunately, BUT at the adobe booth you’ll be able to enter your email address and then like magic a poster will arrive.

I just recently got rid of my old Flex 3/AS 2 posters. Those things are incredible. Every office I’ve worked at since those posters came out has had one or more of them tacked up somewhere. They’re an awesome source of information.

And now with Flex 4 coming out soon, it’ll be time for new posters. Only available to attendees of 360|Flex in printed form at least. Heck that’s almost reason enough to attend, unless you own a plotter, in which case I’m coming over to print some stuff out :)

Don’t miss what is sure to be the best 360|Flex of the first part of 2010 ;) Register now.

And it occurred to me, that it might be a good idea to make it clear what does/doesn’t happen at 360|Flex for those who might not know.

• There are little to no marketing sessions. When we have sponsored sessions, we try to make that as clear as possible, so you know what you’re getting.
• There is not a speaker green room. You’ll have the same access to speakers as anyone else. They’re hanging out, attending sessions etc. No Pre modonnas here, and if there are, they still can’t hide.
• There are speakers who want to be there. Our speakers aren’t paid to be there (well, we do cover hotel room, but that’s it). We don’t invite celebrities or treat one speaker better than the rest, etc. If they’re on the schedule it’s because their topic was awesome, and they wanted to present it.
• There is not such a large group of people that you feel like a tiny fish in a big massive pond.
• There is no Silverlight, or JavaFX. I’m sure they’re great, we don’t hate those technologies, but they have no place at a conference for Flex Developers (UPDATE: We actually do have a Silverlight session, Jun Heider is talking about Silverlight from a Flex developer perspective. No diss intended, I think that sessions that examine other techs make a ton of sense! Know thy enemy, and all)
• There are no semi related technologies in their own tracks. CF and PHP are both great and we have 1 session on each, there are other events for both, and no reason to water down the crazy deep Flex content with peripheral technologies. I’d say if you want a CF conference go to CFUnited or CF.Objective(), but sadly neither of those is focused only on CF any more.
• There are 40 sessions focusing on Flex/ActionScript/AIR and Flash platform.
• There are no extra fees to attend. Sunday Hands-on Training – Free to all attendees. Parties at night – included in the price (actually sponsored by great folks like Adobe, Digital Primates and Universal Mind)

If you haven’t registered for 360|Flex and you’re a Flex developer, you really are doing yourself a disservice. Bluster aside :) you’re not going to get this level of content anywhere else, well except maybe the next 360|Flex :)

Register now, enjoy the community and the crazy amount of new things you’ll learn. No one leaves without learning something new, I swear it. Register now!

Sometimes it’s not enough, we get that. Starting back in September at 360|iDev we experimented with having volunteers. We’ve had temps at past events (San Jose ‘07 and Seattle) and while that works ok, we tried to reduce the need, because that helped keep our costs low. The USB Drive and AIR app surveys (Rock on Leif and RoundBox!!) removed our primary need for “worker bees”

BUT

We’ve realized, time and again that we still need manpower at certain points, and in fact we’re planning to increase our need (More on that later).

Registration is a bottleneck, whether it’s just Tom and I, or my wife Nicole, Nick, and anyone else who pities us in our time of greatest need.

SO…

We’d like to open the call for volunteers. Obviously locals are preferred but anyone is welcome to apply. It’s simple, we need about 8-10 volunteers. In exchange for a few hours a day of time, you get a free pass to the conference and when we don’t need you, you’re free to attend sessions etc. We can’t cover hotel/airfare etc. Just admission to the event.

If the price to get in the door is outside your budget for whatever reason, this might be the perfect opportunity for you.

Here’s what you need to do.

Email us at info (AT) 360flex (Dot) com

We need:

Your Name

Why you’d like to volunteer

Your background in Flex/Flash/AS

That’s about it :) You need to be able to commit to Sunday thru Wednesday and be at Ebay by 7:30am each day.

Our needs aren’t over the top or anything. We need help making the badge pickup/registration process faster. We hate having to delay the keynote in order to hand things out, etc.

We’re hoping to get some sort of basic videography set up for each room. As volunteer you’ll be in charge of starting and stopping the recording for that room, and telling the speaker when he/she has 10 and 5 minutes left. That’s it. After each session, you’ll have to bring the camera to us to offload the video, that’s it.

We’ve got a schedule worked out, so no will be working all day every day.

We’ll be making volunteer selections the week of February 15th. Spread the word, the submission window isn’t open long!

I’m working on the quilted chambray nightshirts copy when who should strut through the door, but Ryan Freakin’ Stewart! (Ryan doesn’t walk, or run, or skip, he struts)

RFS: You John! Good to see you, what’re you doing here!?

Me: Hey man! Just doing a little side work. Trying to figure out how wrap up some copy, the catalog goes to press tomorrow.

You excited about 360|Flex? I’m really glad you’re sponsoring, it’s always awesome when folks in the community show their support, it means a lot!

RFS: “The only friend who hasn’t betrayed you. They only friend who won’t be dead by sunrise..” What’s this copy for?

But yeah, it’s great to be able to support you guys! I still remember the first 360|Flex in San Jose, that was bad ass!

Me: So what do you think people who attend your session will be most surprised by/about?

Three people we have served have taken the time to write up a blog post on their first 360|Flex. These are attendees turned speakers, a path which seems common at our shows. This is because of the type of show we try to put on. John and I grew with each show, so it only made sense that attendees did as well. We didn’t think we could do a conference, but we did. Now, attendees don’t think they can become speakers but they do. 360|Flex has always been and will always be about growth. Growth, not just in Flex skills (because those do grow at the shows), but of also personal growth. Again though, you don’t have to believe us. You can go read these posts yourselves.

The three created this time around are:
Dan Florio, aka Polygeek
Doug McCune
Randy Troppmann

(If you have your own “First 360|Flex” story to tell, write it up and drop us a comment. We’ll add you to the list.)

The point of this post though is to show you one thing: The show is not about 360|Conferences at all really. It’s about the community that comes together to create a magic like no other. Again, don’t take our word for it. Read the accounts. Then, if you’ve never been or haven’t been back in awhile, head on over to the registration page and join us. Without you there, the magic just won’t be the same.

Join us this wednesday for the next in our speaker chat series. Kevin will be talking about his session at 360|Flex San Jose, as well as anything else you’d like to hear about. He’s been doing Flex and CF before that for a long time now, and has struck out on his own as an Indie developer/consultant.

The chat starts at 12:00 MST on Feb 3rd. Don’t miss it. Bookmark this link.

If you haven’t gotten your room at the Marriott yet, you should get on that. Space is filling up, and the price for downtown San Jose is tough to beat.

And if for some reason you haven’t registered for 360|Flex yet, you should also get on that. Use this link to register. It’ll help Kevin in our contest for speakers to get an upgraded suite at the hotel!

Don’t miss 360|Flex, it’s everything you’ve heard, and more :)

Why an official hotel that’s not connected to the conference center? For one, the conference center is on eBay’s HQ. They are trying to run a business, not make your beds or pick up your mess. Aside from that obvious reason, we want to keep having fun after we leave eBay. We’re still gonna party at Ebay after the last sessions; However, instead of taking the post functs to someone’s room, we want to take the party to downtown San Jose!

One thing that’s always nice at a conference is bumping into the “superstars”. While it happens a lot at the conference, it’s tough to pull someone aside to buy ‘em a drink to say thanks for contributing to the community. While we (the organizers) may not be the superstars you’re looking for, we will be at the hotel with all the speakers (who are the superstars). If you’re flying all the way to the show to meet and learn from these people, why would you bother staying anywhere else? Yes, it would be silly, especially after you read up on the deal we have for you!

We have a room block of Sunday night thru Tuesday night. We lined up an amazing rate of $99, for you all because we love you so. :) You don’t think we love you? How about this? In addition to the low rate of $99 for a Mariott (read: Not Sleazy 8 or Motel 6, or the Holiday Inn down the street, close but gross), we’ve also negotiated free wi-fi access for everyone’s guest rooms. That alone will save you some additional coin.

Assuming you’re arriving Saturday to take advantage of our awesome Sunday Hands-On training, and staying until Wednesday to make sure you don’t miss the final 4 sessions, which will rock and be worth your staying ’til the end we promise! You’re still only paying about $125 a night when you average the prices. Compared to other hotels in the area, that’s a damn good deal. Saturday night and Wednesday night are a bit beefier on the price because the majority of people just stay Sunday to Wednesday, so that’s what our block is for.

I’m sure you have all been to conferences where there’s the, “Which hotel are you at dialogue?” Then there’s time and effort spent on who will go where and when to meetup, etc. Make it easier on yourselves and sure to be newfound friends. Just stay at the Mariott so you’re all in the same place and will be easy to find each other. We’ll be there, the speakers will be there, so there’s no reason you shouldn’t be.

You can book online, easy peasy :) Just click here. Check out the Hotel and Travel tab for information on the hotel and getting around San Jose

While you’re booking your room, you have registered for the conference right? We have so much awesome lined up it’s hard to contain ourselves when talking about it :) Register now!

Just make a video about 360|Flex, we’ll let folks vote, and that’s it :)

Speaker Yakov Fain is the first to make a video but it’s not too late. If we get enough videos we’ll be playing them before the keynote!

BUT

We record them, so you can enjoy them later. I wouldn’t miss them live, but if you have to, check out the recordings below.

We forgot to hit record for Dan Florio’s talk, so if you missed that one, you missed it. your loss :)

Here’s what we’ve got so far

James Polanco

Michael Labriola

Don’t miss 360|Flex. I mean really, did those two awesome chats not do anything to convince you? We’ve got so much cool stuff planned, I really think we’re gonna blow the doors off it! Register now

We’ve got some great speakers lined up for the coming weeks.

Jeffry Houser on the 18th

Jeff Tapper on the 23rd