Well, this years OpenForce in Las Vegas is over. I have been attending DevConnections for over 10 years. Three years ago a new Co-Located conference was added. It was called “OpenForce” and is all about DotNetNuke. In the summer of 2008 an “OpenForce Connect” event was held in Orlando Florida. All of these have been good, but there is no question that this years OpenForce was head and shoulders above all the rest.
Monday night there were two keynote speeches for DevConnection, and if I remember correctly, the speakers were from Microsoft. These Keynotes did not leave a lasting impression on me and it was almost like these were throwaway sessions. HOWEVER, The keynote Tuesday morning by Scott Guthrie was a home run, and then the DotNetNuke Keynote by Shaun Walker was a grand slam! It was a great start to the OpenForce conference, and things just seemed to get even better and better as the days went on.
Although attendance was almost the same as last year, approximately 50% of the attendees had never attended an OpenForce before. It is great that new people are coming, but it was sad to not see some of the faces we have grown use to seeing. I must admit that some of the regulars such as Ryan Morgan did have good excuses. (Ryan’s wife was expecting to deliver their first child at any time… I have not heard anything yet, but hope to soon.) It seemed to me that this year we had a higher percentage of people representing Large (dare I say “enterprise”) Companies. There are two things we can glean from this:
- There is a growing acceptance and adoption of the DotNetNuke Web Application Platform.
- The DotNetNuke Corp’s initiatives to bring enterprise level companies into the community is working.
Why do I think this was the best ever OpenForce? SESSIONS SESSIONS SESSIONS!
DotNetNuke had two dedicated rooms for their sessions. For almost every session I had a hard time choosing which one to go to. After a session, I would hear about things being said in the other room which would make me wish I could have been in that one also. I heard several people wishing for video tapes so they could see the sessions they missed and also to help them remember all the things said in the sessions they attended. The comment about wishing for repeated sessions also came up several times. The level of expertise displayed this year was unbelievable. I felt like the “country mouse gone to the city”.
I’m not even going to try to enumerate the list of technical goodies that were revealed this week. I’m still trying to organize my list of great information, tips, and tricks that I picked up. However, there are several things I do want to mention. Probably one of the most noted announcements was that DNN Corp has made a formal alliance with Telerik and will be using and delivering many of Telerik’s controls in the coming releases. Watch for announcements and news releases for specific licensing and usage details. From what I could gather, it sounds like as DNN developers, we will be able to use the available controls in DNN modules much like we do with the DNN controls. My understanding is that DNN will distribute DLLs that Telerik has modified which will only work in a DNN context. Obviously Telerik is not going to give away their products with no return, and they are NOT putting their products into opensource. Therefore, be sure to watch for more OFFICAL information on this. If you are like me and already license the Telerik suite, you can understand why I am excited about this.
The Next announcement that I want everyone to be sure to hear is that the DotNetNuke UI and UX will be changing. As you can imagine, with the inclusion of the Telerik controls, a lot can change very fast. Nik Kalyani said that they would move slowly and make sure the changes were what the community in general wanted. That being said, I expect we will start seeing changes as early as version 5.3 and maybe even before that official release.
Hmmm version 5.3. That brings up a really big subject. Earlier this year I stated in a blog that I wanted to attend OpenForce to see how the new management was shaking out. Man! was I impressed! The changes are like night and day between what we saw in OpenForce 08 and OpenForce 09. In “08”, the new management and financing were not quite finalize and it seemed like the then current management was hiding things. Realistically, they were. Legally there were many things they could not say much less even talk about. This left the impression that the Core Team was hiding things and the business advisors were being very tepid and cautious about the things they were saying. This left many people in the dark and very worried, upset, and confused. After the final “08” wrap-up session, there was a lot of bewilderment and fear. In contrast, this year, things were VERY open and positive. They weren’t sidestepping questions or evading. They gave us real answers to our questions. Sure, we did not always get the answers we wanted, nor did we always get answers as detailed as we wanted. However, the attitude of the attendees after the wrap-up session was full of excitement and anticipation. People weren’t whispering and wondering what was going on, they were asking more questions, talking about the future,and talking about what they were going to be able to do and how excited they were about it. The Corp and Core Team were much more relaxed this year. I think the new corporate environment has been acclimated; the new funding has allowed new hires and thus spread out the responsibilities; in general, things seem much more organized. We will be able to expect regular releases, upgrades, and patches. I’m not saying that everything is going to be a bed of roses, but, when they said that 5.2 was about to be released and 5.3 was planned for first quarter 2010, I can believe that it will be delivered then. I have been burned by delivery statements in the past, so I have reason to be skeptical, but I think those days are behind us where DNN is concerned.
DevConnections has always been a good networking event, but the DNN conference was exceptional this year. I wish I could list all the people I was able to talk to this year. Beware all ye who offered help… I’ll be calling!
The OpenForce Social was a great event again this year. Of all the things the new management did for OpenForce this year, I was concerned about this one. Maybe I am blind, but I never saw any advertisements or notices (other than in a blog/email or two) about the event. I was afraid that people might not know about it. I even mentioned it to a couple of the Corp guys. Whatever they did to let people know about it and get them there worked, the room was packed and it looked like everyone was there, having a good time, and excited.
Bottom Line: If you were one of the 50% that didn’t return this year or haven’t ever been to an OpenForce and just decided not to go this year, you really missed it. I will be very surprised if the attendance next year does not double or even triple. You need to start planning now to be there next year because it will be the DNN event of the year.
For the legal disclaimer: I am not paid nor compensated by any of the companies mentioned in this blog. I did receive a door prize (list price $50) at the DNN social that was donated by a third party vendor not mentioned in this blog.
As i mentioned earlier, I have been attending DevConnection conferences for many years before DotNetNuke even came into being. I have developed a friendly relationship with many of the people from DevConnections even though I am sure they don’t know my name and I must admit that I know very few of theirs. However when I get there they wave and say hi. They will stop and welcome me and we talk and joke back and forth. Thursday evening after the conference was over, my wife and I were having supper in one of the convention center restaurants. I won’t mention names here, but one of the people form DevConnections walked by our table, stopped and said hi. As normal, we jokingly gave each other a hard time. When we got ready to leave we were informed that our meal had been paid for by (names withheld to protect the really nice folks). We were in shock. It was totally unexpected, and greatly appreciated. I don’t know if these folks know anything about DotNetNuke, ASP.Net, Visual Studio, SQL or any of the other topics discussed, but they sure know how to run conferences and how to be really nice folks!