John Kellar's Blog

Speaker Lessons

john.kellar@edgeofdev.com (John Kellar) — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 23:00:00 +0000

I have had the opportunity to work on both sides of the speaking realm as both a regular speaker and event organizer. Over the years, there have been a number of interesting incidents which lead me to write this post. For the most part, I believe the majority of aspiring speakers behave professionally, but there are definitely those who don't fit the bill. I thought I would share a few stories and some takeaways. This is certainly not a full list, just something that hit me as a valuable post for those who plan to be a speaker at different events. I have excluded any names from the stories to protect the guilty and avoid making someone look bad.

Once there was a keynote speaker that provided an abstract that sounded great. The abstract talked about how things had been in the past, what we have done to make things better and the bright future ahead. All was well with the world until the speaker started talking. The keynote content was one of the most boring and disliked sessions in the history of the event. Attendees were blasting the speaker and his illustrious keynote on Twitter as the blather continued to spew. I was in the back hallway crouched down by the floor with my head in my hands wishing for time to speed up so he could be finished and get off the stage.

LESSON TO SPEAKERS:

Your abstract is not just a quirky little paragraph to make people think you are witty and come see your session. It is a tool for attendees to determine what content makes sense for them and if the content doesn't match the abstract you have missed the point. Make sure your abstracts are clear in what the intent of the session is and who should be there as well.
Know your audience, if you are going to present content that is focused on a specific audience be sure to indicate that in your abstract. Additionally, look at the event to get a feel for whether the attendees will be interested.

I was once contacted by a speaker the week of the conference letting me know that a family health emergency had come up and they could not attend. Obviously, I was understanding and cancelled their sessions with my hopes that all would work out well. Then one of the conference staff members mentioned that the speaker just posted on a popular social networking site how great their vacation with their family was going. After a quick look, the speaker was indeed having a wonderful time with their family, which is great for them. I don't care that the speaker was on vacation and would have understood if he had been honest. Why did the speaker feel the need to lie? Who cares, the fact is that they didn't have the courage to be honest.

LESSON FOR SPEAKERS:

Don't lie to organizers about why you can't make it to the event. You show your character, or lack thereof, and it will be remembered. P.S. We can use Twitter and Facebook too. ;)
When you are accepted as a speaker, put it on your calendar and manage other activities around it. If a priority comes up, immediately notify the organizers so they can make alternate plans.
Do everything possible to be there if you can, don't think that it isn't a big deal to cancel because it can wreak havoc on organizers. I have had last minute cancellations in the past, but did everything possible to find a replacement beforehand so it wasn't on the organizers plate.

I remember a time when a speaker showed up to the conference asking for a session to be delayed so they could finish up their presentation. After giving them the schedule change, they asked again saying that they were not able to get it 100%. We rescheduled again, but the speaker didn't show up to their session and instead attended an Open Space session. When I found the speaker it was nothing but excuses. The problem here was that the speaker had no understanding of the impact their actions had on attendees. People had really wanted to learn what the speaker said they were going to present.

LESSON FOR SPEAKERS:

Get your content together for sessions that you have committed to deliver before the week of the conference. Tweaks and updates are fine, but it is always difficult to get a quality session together without the proper time.
If you won't be ready for your session, let the organizer know immediately to give them an opportunity to make alternate plans before it is too late. It happens, but there are always options like having another speaker who knows the content help you out with one of their sessions.

During one event we had a visiting speaker from a major software company who gave a session at the conference. Unfortunately, they left their luggage in one of the rooms which we locked for security purposes while the closing keynote was going on at the end of the event. So we sent the speaker and a volunteer down to wait for security to bring the key. Security took their sweet time getting there and I arrived at the room to find the speaker and volunteer having a cordial conversation. Once I approached them the speaker said something regarding me saving him from listening to the volunteer talk anymore. While he meant it as a joke, his personality (kinda Prima Donna) came across as an insult to the volunteer.

LESSON FOR SPEAKERS:

Just because you are an expert in your field, doesn't mean you are a better person than anyone else. Check your ego at the door and be watchful of how you treat others. Speakers are highly respected by most people and should act professionally in all their activities. This seems to be a major problem with some speakers who have Huge Ego Disorder (HED) also known as having a "Big HED". That was me being witty. ;)

Another interesting time was when a speaker had two of the most popular sessions at the conference. During his first session there were over 100 people in the room, but the speaker was nowhere to be found. Finally, before his second session was set to begin the speaker leisurely arrives at the conference announcing his presence. I informed him of the issue with the earlier session and he explained that the schedule indicated it was in the afternoon. He was correct, except that was not the actual schedule, it was the tentative schedule from over a month earlier. Updates were sent to speakers about the final schedule before we printed the guides, which he obviously didn't pay attention too.

LESSON TO SPEAKERS:

When a conference organizer sends you an e-mail, READ IT
Always check the schedule online the week and night before an event. This ensures you are always on time and don't cause the organizer a problem.

Now I would like end on a positive note which is one of my favorite stories ever.

Once there was a speaker who didn't show up to his session or even the conference. Unfortunately, I was unaware that the speaker was not present because his speaker badge had gotten misplaced. So around 30 people sat patiently in the session waiting for the speaker to arrive for around 5-10 minutes after start time. Another speaker who was in the room because he wanted to hear what the scheduled speaker's thoughts on the topic decided to take action. He strolled to the front of the room, introduced himself and let everyone know he was willing to discuss the topic if they were interested. With no presentation and everyone's agreement he delivered a great session. At the end of the session, I was grabbed by an attendee who raved about the opportunity to hear this speaker and other attendees shared the same thoughts later. Now that is amazing!

LESSONS FOR SPEAKERS:

Be on the lookout for opportunities to help out at an event. The people in that session were talking about it months later and they also learned about the topic of interest.

Hopefully you would never be a part of the negative stories I shared. There are plenty of other instances and lessons that I have learned as an organizers to battle these problems as well. In the end, a speaker must have respect for the organizers/attendees and their commitment. I hope these stories will spark some thoughts about your pursuit of being a good speaker. Obviously, there are many more stories I could share and lessons to be learned. If you have a good one, please feel free to post them. Remember I am a speaker too, so it is always good to see where I can make improvements.

Atlanta Code Camp

john.kellar@edgeofdev.com (John Kellar) — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 15:02:00 +0000

This morning I took a short trip down to Marietta, Georgia for the Atlanta Code Camp. I was able to attend this event a couple of years ago, but only for a short visit. It was a great event and looked to be packed. My first session was more of a soft skills talk geared toward people who are interested in being a consultant and starting their own business. There was a great crowd and some excellent insights. Most notably was regarding marketing yourself.

One of the attendees mentioned attending a baseball game with a handful of business cards, then throwing the cards in the air when a big play was made at the game. He said afterwards he got a couple of phone calls from people who found his card and a job opportunity. Amazing!

Below are the slides, which are unfortunately not as enjoyable without a group of folks sharing their experiences.

Consulting Getting Started

View more presentations from John Kellar

A New & FREE .NET Decompiler

john.kellar@edgeofdev.com (John Kellar) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 17:25:00 +0000

Today I was pleasantly surprised to learn about a new .NET decompiler that is currently in Beta release. It is called JustDecompile and developed by Telerik as a stand alone decompiler application. The best part is that JustDecompile is offered for free which is a great opportunity for those who are not able or willing to purchase Reflector once the free version stops working after May 30, 2011.

Since this is a BETA product it might not meet everyone's needs yet. For example, it currently decompiles to C# (nothing wrong there), so if you are VB.NET developer or like viewing another language you will have to wait. The current plan seems to be regular automatic updates throughout the BETA period and a planned 3 major releases once the product is ready for prime time.

Reflector has served me well and my hope is that a well backed competitor in this area can only make both tools better. I will definitely be giving JustDecompile a few looks and see how this tool is going to work out.

Reflector - Not free anymore?

john.kellar@edgeofdev.com (John Kellar) — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 16:05:00 +0000

Today it was announced that Red Gate Software would begin charging for .NET Reflector with the version 7 release. The announcement triggered a flurry of Twitter activity from several developers who have enjoyed use of Reflector for many years. Reflector was developed and maintained by Lutz Roeder until 2008 when he transferred ownership to Red Gate. From the beginning Reflector was provided as a free tool to the development community. When Red Gate assumed ownership without making any commitment (or obligation) to keeping Reflector free, they continued to do so until the proposed May 2011 release of version 7.

Why all the uproar?
In my opinion, this is a perfect example of people feeling like they deserve to have something when they have done nothing to deserve it. Lutz could have easily charged for Reflector when he was working on the tool, but decided not too. I along with many other people would have been willing to pay a small price to leverage Reflector. It was a huge help for me when I started working on WPF and there were no books on the market. It was his code and his perogative to offer Reflector for free. Now the code belongs to Red Gate and in order to really commit their developers they are going to ask for $35 for a perpetual individual license. I guess they could ask their people to work for free, but I doubt they would. Would you?

Do I like the decision? NO, but I understand that companies can't do everything for free. Think about it like this, go to your local grocery store and most of them will have free cookies for kids at the bakery. Let's say you take your kid to the store everyday for a free cookie for 6 or 7 years until the store discovers they need to pay the baker. So they ask you to pay $1 for a membership card for your little cookie monster to get cookies. Now ask yourself, do you have a right to the cookie? Will you go on Twitter and say the grocery store is the scourge of the earth? I certainly hope not. I have used Red Gate tools for years and have been pleased. While I am not happy about the decision, I don't fault them and they haven't violated any sacred trust.

Caveat

Where I would find concern is if the rumor, and I haven't seen any documentation supporting this claim, that you would not be able to use the last free version once version 7 is released. There would be no reason for Red Gate to keep users from being able to use an unsupported and feature frozen version of the free tool that exists today.

iPad – Week One

john.kellar@edgeofdev.com (John Kellar) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 21:51:00 +0000

Last Saturday, I received the new Apple iPad delivered to my door. That’s right, I didn’t sleep outside any stores like so many others. Now that I have had a few days to work with it, I felt the urge to share some thoughts.

First Impressions

The first thing that caught my attention was the clarity of the display. It renders beautifully and is very easy on the eyes. Whether viewing web pages or a book in the iBook application, the iPad definitely has a remarkable screen. I think the next most noticeable feature for me is the performance. The iPad is extremely responsive and the smooth transition between landscape and portrait views is the most obvious way to observe it. That being said, my iPhone demonstrated great performance when I first purchased it as well, but has become considerably more sluggish over time. I will be watching that closely.

Question: “Isn’t it just a big iPhone/iPod Touch?”

While the general look and feel is identical, but size does matter in this instance. Remember that those were devices that were all about mobility, the iPad (in my opinion) is more about entertainment with a little productivity on the side. Little screens aren’t very good when it comes to reading and watching movies. Even more important is the ability to type and as Todd Anglin so nicely put it “It’s like an iPhone that finally fits your fingers”. Thanks Todd

I had the chance to take this little gem with me on a flight earlier in the week. I thought a quick comparison to a laptop on a plane would be a good field test.

Laptop	iPad
Can be bulky unless it’s a netbook, but still not quite the same	Light weight and reasonably sized.
Startup time wastes time and battery life	No startup time, no problem
When the person in front of you puts down their seat you have to bend down to see the screen.	Easy to handle and hold, no worries about putting that seat back. Can easily lay it on the tray.
Battery life not so hot, probably 3 good hours unless you start turning on power saver options.	Battery life was not an issue for 6 hours of travel time. Still had plenty when I arrived at the hotel.
Watching movies, games and music. All good, but back to battery life and the pesky person in front of you who likes to recline	I have 5 movies on my iPad, several games and all my music. I watched a movie each way on my trip, listened to music and squeezed in a couple of games with no impact to battery and a great picture.
Will start to get hot after a while and planes aren’t the coolest place on earth. UGH!	No heat issues at all, even holding/resting it directly in the hand for hours.
I can code on it	I CAN’T code on it

Applications

The iPad has tons of applications, but a couple of useful productivity applications called “Pages” and “Numbers” are the big thing for iPad. These are Apple’s versions of Microsoft Word and Excel. I liked using both of the applications on the iPad. I used Pages for taking notes which was great just hit the button and tap and I can start capturing information. Numbers was not bad, but there is nothing like Excel to work with spreadsheets. It would be good for capturing some information while out of pocket though. Need a way to pull them back over and into Excel, now that would be productive.

In Summary

So overall I think the iPad is a great device for entertainment and it can help from a productivity standpoint as well. It does not replace a laptop and I don’t think that was Apple’s intention anyway. It is a nice piece of technology and has some great uses, but a laptop has all the bells and whistles and the iPad just doesn’t yet. The size is right and the price is high, but if you already have a laptop it can be a great companion.

I see some potential as a good field platform for enterprise applications (with 3G, of course). Unfortunately it looks like Apple is going to screw that up with their recent change to the Developer Program License Agreement which potentially excludes applications built by MonoTouch, Unity3d and other non-Apple tools. Smart move Apple, hope you come to your senses.

DEVLINK 2010 - Allowing voting on sessions

john.kellar@edgeofdev.com (John Kellar) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:06:00 +0000

I am amazed that it is already March and the amount of time for getting DEVLINK 2010 is shrinking quickly. This year I thought it might be nice to open things up a little bit and let the community help drive what sessions make the conference. To be completely honest, it gets tough reviewing so many sessions and trying to find the best fit and balance, so why not share the workload. Of course, voting is only one component of how sessions get selected, in the end it will fall on us to make the deciding factor of what sessions can make the schedule. I really like the StackOverflow model of voting up or down which is why we went that route. If you are planning to attend the conference, please take a moment to check out the sessions and cast your vote on what you would like to see.

Community Events of Note

john.kellar@edgeofdev.com (John Kellar) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 14:20:00 +0000

With 2010 already well underway, a new list of community events is building up. Of course, devLink will be happening August 5 – 7 in Nashville, but I am going to be at a couple of others and wanted to bring them some attention.

January 20th, Nashville, TN - A lap around PDC featuring Steve Ballmer
Microsoft is putting on a one day event in Nashville with Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft doing the keynote. This is a summary of some of the content that came out at PDC in 2009, so it should be very informative for those using Microsoft development platforms and tools.

January 21, Murray, KY – Western Kentucky .NET User Group
I have been given the honor of being the inaugural speaker at the Western Kentucky .NET User Group in Murray, KY. I will be presenting on Effective Interface Design. If you are in the area please come by for the kickoff meeting of this new group.

January 23, Mobile, AL - Alabama Code Camp
This is my first time going to the Alabama Code Camp, but the lineup looks excellent. I will be presenting three sessions and really looking forward to getting down there. If you are in or around the area, you might want to consider going to this free event.

January 29, Louisville, KY – Louisville .NET Meetup Group
My last community event of the month will be a presentation at the Louisville .NET Meetup Group. I will be presenting Tools, Tips and Tricks for the .NET Developer which should be a great time. If you are in Louisville then check it out.

Searching a table with SQL LIKE statement and multiple paramters

john.kellar@edgeofdev.com (John Kellar) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:41:00 +0000

Recently I was faced with the need to search across a table for several search terms and return the results. The search terms were to be built dynamically, so there was no way to know how many would be provided. Due to some client policies, I had to do the work through a stored procedure. I did not want to perform multiple calls to the procedure for each term identified, but you cannot pass multiple parameters to the LIKE statement in SQL, or can you? I immediately thought of passing in all my search terms via XML, but couldn't remember the syntax to pull the data out. Thankfully a friend of mine was kind enough hear my dilema and not laugh (too hard) when he pointed out that it was called 'OPENXML'. Yes, extremely obvious, but it had been a long day. Ok, so back on track.

If you haven't used OPENXML before it is available in SQL Server 2005/2008 and is really quite useful. In the past, I have used this mostly for passing in multiple objects to perform a mass INSERT and/or UPDATE. This was my first time using it with a LIKE statement, but it works perfectly. I didn't want to lose this code, since I am likely to use it again in the future so I figured I would do a quick blog post. So here is how to pass multiple parameters into a LIKE statement in SQL Server.

Below the schema for a table that I will use in my example.

Here is a little sample data for as well

So I need to be able to search the "Bio" field in my table to see if it contains the words 'PhD', 'scientist' or 'CEO'.

First, I need to build my search terms in XML form. This is a simple string which can be built in your application code and passed as a parameter into SQL Server. My example below show how you can do it in SQL Server so you can tweak it.

--String parameter with the search terms in XML format

DECLARE @xmlTerms VARCHAR(8000) -- Size it according to your expectations



--Here I am building the XML string with all the necessary terms.

SET @xmlTerms =

'<SearchTerms>

<SearchTerm>%PhD%</SearchTerm>

<SearchTerm>%scientist%</SearchTerm>

<SearchTerm>%CEO%</SearchTerm>

<SearchTerms>'



--A handle to the XML so we can reference it in the OPENXML call

DECLARE @xmlHandle INT



--This parses the XML and returns us a handle to the data

EXEC sp_xml_preparedocument @xmlHandle out, @xmlTerms



--Now we can perform our query

SELECT id, searchTerm FROM exampleTable A

INNER JOIN (SELECT searchTerm

FROM OPENXML(@xmlHandle,'/SearchTerms/SearchTerm',1) --Make note that the XML nodes are case sensitive

WITH (searchTerm VARCHAR(50) 'text()')) T ON A.Bio LIKE searchTerm

ORDER BY id

One key thing to note is that this must be done via a JOIN, otherwise it will not work. The JOIN is what allows the LIKE comparison over multiple criteria dynamically.

devLink 2009 – THE GREATEST DEVLINK EVER!!!!

john.kellar@edgeofdev.com (John Kellar) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 16:11:00 +0000

Yes, I said it! Actually, I am just repeating what I keep hearing from people who took the time to attend. Personally, it was the best event for me and the devLink team has expressed the same. With the economic climate today we were not expecting such great attendance, but we saw approximately 675 attendees from across the United States and Canada, as well as the United Kingdom and Denmark. It never ceases to amaze me how many folks are willing to invest in themselves to improve their skills out of their own pocket.

This year we added an extra day, extending devLink from a Friday-Saturday event to a Thursday - Saturday event. We always try new things each year and this year we made the first day a series of In-depth (3 hour) sessions intended to get people up to speed on a given topic. Overall it was pretty successful, but I think we can improve on this a little next year. Chicken Nick’s catered our lunch and had some amazing chicken strips which everyone was raving about. We invited comedian Rik Roberts to perform during lunch on Thursday to give everyone a smile and get them ready for the afternoon sessions which he did wonderfully.

Microsoft's Josh Holmes wrapped up the event for Thursday with his thought provoking keynote "The Lost Art of Simplicity". Then it was off to the VIP dinner where we welcome our speakers and thank them for committing their time to the event, along with some lucky attendees who get to come.

The second day of devLink was back to the regular session schedule and we had plenty to keep people busy. We had a little hiccup for lunch when our other lunch vendor deliver only half of our order and people had to wait for the second delivery. It would have been a disaster at any other event, but our attendees were so gracious and understanding it was surreal. I put Keith Elder on the spot and told him it was his job to keep the people waiting on the food happy. For those who don't know Keith he is a very charismatic guy and he had people playing musical chairs, red rover and singing songs. Of course, giving him some prizes to give away probably didn't hurt either. I think we may need to book him as one of our entertainment options in the future. When the food finally arrived the manager gave a personal apology to all the attendees and we got everyone fed.

Once sessions wrapped up on Friday several attendees made their way to the Nashville Sounds baseball game for the devLink attendee party. We had the entire party deck full of folks enjoying burgers, hot dogs and BBQ along with the game. It was a great time and Nashville won the game. Early in the evening we crowded everyone on the lower deck for a group picture (shown below).

Saturday rounded out the conference with another full day of sessions. We wrapped up the conference this year with DotNetRocks hosting a speaker panel for the event. It was a great discussion on whether software development had become too complex. At one point the line at the microphones were five people deep. Richard and Carl helped us give away the conference prizes with the 64-bit question contest which everyone enjoyed thoroughly.

So that is a quick rundown of how devLink 2009 went. It would not be possible without a number of great volunteers like John Baker, Jason Clark, Bryan Meyer, Rachel Twyford, Amy Boegh, Colin Neller, Randy Walker, Keith Elder, Alan Stevens, Evan Hoff, Robbie Mansfield, Rebel Bailey and many more. Even more devLink would not happen without the support of Leanna Baker who works her butt off all year long and puts up with me.

While this may have been the best devLink ever, it was also one of the toughest to put on. With the economic climate today we saw a drop in sponsors ability to support the event. We don’t want to turn devLink into a $1500 conference, actually we never will, but it takes sponsors to make the event available for $100 per person. So I have to mention these companies because their contributions as sponsors were crucial to putting on our event this year.

Vaco Technology was a tremendous factor in us putting the event on this year

Microsoft is a long time supporter and continued to be a major help to us this year

DataDirect is another long time supporter of the event and keeps coming back time and time again

Infragistics joined us as a major sponsor for the first time this year sending Jason Beres down for not only a vendor session, but we were able to fit him in for a regular session as well. We hope to see them again next year.

As the big conferences see their numbers drop lower and lower, events like devLink are growing. So next year is tenatively scheduled for August 5, 6 and 7, 2010 and we are already planning for it. If you have something/someone that you would love to see at devLink, please feel free to contact me anytime.

devLink 2009 Conference Schedule is live

john.kellar@edgeofdev.com (John Kellar) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 02:45:00 +0000

With around six weeks remaining until the big event, the conference schedule for devLink 2009 is now available. It is hard to believe that we are so close to our fourth conference in Nashville. You can find the conference schedule on the devLink website (http://www.devlink.net). If you are planning to attend the conference I look forward to meeting you. Don’t forget to let your friends know about the event too, we want as many people as possible to benefit from what devLink has to offer.

CodeStock 2009 is history, but not done yet

john.kellar@edgeofdev.com (John Kellar) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:38:00 +0000

I spent this past weekend at the CodeStock 2009 conference in Knoxville, TN. This is the second year for CodeStock and Michael Neel put together another excellent event. I spent the majority of Friday in the Open Spaces discussing everything from blogs to refactoring code for legacy applications. Saturday it was my turn as I presented “Getting Started with WPF”. While WPF is not new anymore, I still find people who are just now looking at it for the first time. Attendance at the session was surprisingly larger than I expected for a Saturday morning, but I am not complaining. I am not a slide heavy speaker, so I will just make the sample project available.

So above I took a snapshot of the front and back of the guide (shown above) and got a real kick out of the 2010 concept. If you don’t understand, watch the movie 2010 and you will. It is great to see that there is motivation to do CodeStock again. I must admit, it can be addictive once you have had a couple of successful events. I also had the honor of participating in a panel about community events which was fun.

So I guess I need to get back to work on devLink since it is only about six weeks away. Wow! Time flies.

So you want to be a consultant? – Billable Hours

john.kellar@edgeofdev.com (John Kellar) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 04:13:00 +0000

Recently, I have been getting a number of questions about what it takes to be a consultant. This is obviously a huge topic to try and cover in a single post. The conversation usually turns to a question about how much the person should charge for bill rate. This is not easy to answer either, since several factors come into play. To get started at determining your bill rate you really need to think about how many hours you will be able to bill someone for your services. So how many billable hours are REALLY in a year? Let’s look at the numbers.

52 weeks in a year
x 5 work days each week
260 possible work days each year

Now that we have a starting point, let’s think about time off. Yes, you have to take time off whether you like it or not sometimes. There are essentially 10 major holidays to consider in the United States. While not all companies close on every holiday, you have to plan for them all since you never know what a company will recognize.

New Year’s Day
Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday
President’s Day
Memorial Day
Independence Day
Labor Day
Columbus Day
Veterans Day
Thanksgiving Day
Christmas Day

Next, consider how much vacation time you plan to take each year. This will be different for everyone, but I use 15 days vacation in my planning. That covers sick days and actual vacation time, remember you don’t get paid when you are on vacation as a consultant. Let’s apply our time off to the number of days available and see where we fall.

260 possible work days each year
- 10 holidays
- 15 days vacation
235 possible work days remaining each year

So you might think you can stop here and you could, but I don’t recommend it. Ask any recruiter how many billable hours are in a year and you will probably hear a number around 2000 hours. That number sure sounds great, but this is not a perfect world. You may or may not be on a contract for the duration of the year, consultants experience change and you must be ready. So below I have two scenarios, the first is a scenario where you will have no more than 5 days of not being on a contract and the second is a scenario where you will have 25 days of no work. This may or may not be representative of what you will experience, but better to prepare for the worst.

Good Scenario	Bad Scenario
235 possible work days - 5 no contract days 230 work days * 8 hours per day 1840 billable hours potential	235 possible work days - 25 no contract days 205 work days * 8 hours per day 1680 billable hours potential

So there you have it, plan for both scenarios and you should have a good idea of where to get started with bill rate.

All about Podcasting

john.kellar@edgeofdev.com (John Kellar) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 04:09:00 +0000

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to sit down with Carl Franklin of DotNetRocks (DNR) fame. This was really impromptu, but I knew exactly what to talk about. Carl and Richard Campbell have been tremendously successful in the podcasting realm so it was time to get Carl’s thoughts on how to get started podcasting. So sit back, relax and pay attention as Carl shares his experience on podcasting.

Where has John been?

john.kellar@edgeofdev.com (John Kellar) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 05:10:00 +0000

I recently made the decision to return to the world of consulting so time has been spread thin. I have actually become an entrepreneur by merging my Anvil Systems (Sole Proprietorship) with Useful Devices, Inc. (www.usefuldevices.com). Useful Devices is an electronic product development company that has offered electronic design, manufacturing and management for commercial and industrial companies. So what does that have to do with software development and consulting? Great question, if you have an MP3 player you probably have software on your computer to interact with that device. This is no different for custom built devices, hence the need for quality software applications to support devices. I expect this will offer new and exciting development challenges. Not all custom software development will be for devices of course. I will additionally consult on development needs of customers as well.

What does all this mean?

Well, I will be getting back to my blog to deliver more frequent and hopefully useful content. I am really excited about Visual Studio 2010 and may even tackle some other topics as well. So essentially, I just wanted to make sure you knew that I am still alive and plan to bring my blog back to life.

Getting around to Practices of an Agile Developer

john.kellar@edgeofdev.com (John Kellar) — Sat, 02 May 2009 01:56:00 +0000

I have had the book Practices of an Agile Developer sitting on my bookshelf for quite some time. This past week I went to the Toronto Code Camp and decided to take the book for the plane trip. I know the book is not brand new ©2006, but I found it to be a good read and contain some worthwhile content so I figured I would mention it.

As with most practices books there are usually several “I already knew that” moments, but it is always good to get a different perspective. Sometimes you get to see a new way of thinking or reinforce your own understanding of a principle. The book is written in a conversational tone, which makes for an easy read.

The book is broken into a series of short sections or lessons within each chapter, so you don’t have to read it cover to cover. It covers a wide array of topics and mentions some excellent resources and tools. At less than 200 pages it should not sit on your bookshelf as long as it did mine. Anyone who is looking for some exposure to Agile practices or just good overall practices would benefit from the book.

Planning a Technical Event – To Pay or Not to Pay

john.kellar@edgeofdev.com (John Kellar) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 15:07:00 +0000

The question of whether to charge people to attend an event is something I get all the time. It is tough question because I have run both free and pay events and they both have their risks and rewards. Every situation is different, so you should consider your situation carefully and make an informed decision. I have a couple points which I share when asked the question.

This is about the community, we don’t want to make people pay to attend.

You are absolutely right, it is about the community. A sponsor(s) may be willing to cover all the costs. A company may offer their facilities. Attendees can brown bag their lunches. If you can bring together an event at no cost to you then you can definitely deliver it for free to attendees. There are a number of free events that operate successfully this way. The best thing about a free event is if people are not happy, they can get a full refund. Expectations may be high, but the “free” says it all, it only cost them time.

If we can put on an event for free, why would we consider charging at all?

Good question, so events that are free suffer from two core issues. They don’t necessarily dictate success or failure, but they can affect the reach and operation of your event.

Perceived Value
Look at the sample advertisements below.When you call about the free puppies what do you think your expectations will be versus calling about the $250 puppies? You will probably expect the puppies that cost $250 to be pure bred and registered with the local/national kennel club. Your expectation of the free puppies will be far less and you might even harbor some reservations about whether you would want one.

Apply the same logic to your event and you can see that there is a chance of limiting your audience. This is not a global truth, but it should be considered. When you add a price tag to the event, people will evaluate it differently. I am not saying charge $1500 a person, that type of event is about making money not the community (for the most part). Think of a nominal charge that you think people would be willing to pay. I try price events based on the cost of a good technical book. Most good books range from $30 - $70 so if you can give someone the value of a book at your event, that should be your price point or a little less. By charging a nominal fee, you could increase the number of people you reach. If your event isn’t costing you anything, use the money to print up t-shirts, buy everyone lunch or give the money back when they show up.

No Investment means No Commitment
The biggest impact to free events is the dreaded drop off rate. My experience is that most free events see between 35% and 70% of registered attendees not show up to the event. Consider the following scenario.

You organize an event and get sponsors to pay for t-shirts and lunch. You have 600 people register to attend. You order enough food and shirts for everyone plus some extra, just in case. The day of the event arrives, but you only have 400 people show up.

In reality, a free event with 400 out of 600 people is great. So you now have over 200 meals that will not be eaten and 200 shirts that will not be worn. You could have used the money that was wasted and bought prizes or something else for those who did attend. What do you do? Donate the food to a shelter is one idea.

The easiest way to motivate people to attend an event is to make them demonstrate their interest in attending. By requiring someone to pay a nominal fee, you will give them a reason to show up. Think about it, if you skip an appointment to the doctor, they most likely charge you for not showing up. Do you skip regularly? If they didn’t charge you, there would be not reason for you to care if you skip or not. The same applies to an event.

The drop off rate I have experienced since adding a cost to attend has been at the highest 4%. No joke, we see 96% of those who register for the event actually attend the event. They have a vested interest in attending so they are more committed to show up.

Risks and Rewards
Remember, I am not saying that free events are bad, just demonstrating some things to think about. If you don’t see them as a concern, please keep your event free. When you add money to the equation there are definite differences. You have to be concerned with how to collect payment, managing the money and more. There are definitely rewards to adding a price tag, people are more committed to attend and will perceive your event as more valuable. There are risks associated with it as well, since people have put money in their expectations rise and will react differently if they don’t leave satisfied. You will need to focus on the details so your event delivers or exceeds attendee expectations.

I am always interested in hearing others opinions on this topic.

CodeStock 2009, a must attend event

john.kellar@edgeofdev.com (John Kellar) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:00:00 +0000

Once again Michael Neel and the crew in Knoxville, TN are pushing the envelope for community conferences with CodeStock 2009. The CodeStock crew will be presenting the 2nd annual CodeStock conference on June 26-27, 2009. Not only is the event put on by developers who are passionate about technology, but you have a chance to decide on what the sessions will be. If you register for CodeStock before May 15, you can cast a vote for your top 5 most desired sessions. The voting will help decide what sessions are selected. I was at CodeStock last year and it was a very well attended and well run event, especially for it’s first year. I know that this year will be just a good and look forward to heading back.

The amount of activities that will be going on is quite impressive. Jeffrey Richter and John Robbins will be delivering virtual sessions which I assure you will be excellent. I have been trying to get just one of those guys to devLink since 2006, so great job to the CodeStock folks for landing them. There will be a contest called Unbeatable Geek, which should be very interesting to see. Nick Bradbury, creator of HomeSite, TopStyle and FeedDemon will be participating in a panel on creating business from software. Even I have been invited to participate in a panel discussion about running community conferences and user groups, which should be a fun time. The good ole boys from Deep Fried Bytes, Keith Elder and Chris “Woody” Woodruff will be on hand to record a live podcast episode as well.

This is one of the best run and enjoyable events that I have every attended so I hope you will consider spending a weekend in Knoxville at CodeStock this June. Oh, I forgot to mention that the price for tickets is only $25 before June 1st and $45 after that date, so it is recession friendly. With an offering of around 50 sessions and the rest, it is a bargain.

Alternative to Cisco VPN Client for Windows 7 64-bit

john.kellar@edgeofdev.com (John Kellar) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 11:00:00 +0000

A few months back I posted a blog entry about a VPN client for Vista 64-bit. My problem was that Cisco did not offer a VPN client and I needed one. I came across the NCP Secure Entry Client which I have been using since that time with great success. Actually that is one of the most visited blog posts. I must say that the company does an amazing job at supporting the tool, although I had minimal issues with it in the beginning anyway. I have to point out one instance where Someone posted a question on my blog regarding the tool, and it was not something that I could answer. So I contacted support and mentioned the question and they took time to answer the question on my blog. Now that is support!

Recently I decided to give the Windows 7 Beta a try and I have been pleased to say the least. As I was walking through my list of applications to install, I came across the NCP Client. Not thinking clearly, it was like 3 a.m., I attempted to install the Vista 64-bit version. Windows 7 made me try a few times, but it finally was installed, but I was unable to import my connection settings (.pcf file). I decided I would hold off on any panic until I visited the website to see if maybe there was a more recent version or a forum post answered my dilemma. To my surprise the NCP Secure Entry Client has a Windows 7 beta version as well. Now how many companies out there are offering a beta product for a beta operating system? That was a rhetorical question.

I held off on posting anything this time around until I had plenty of time to see if I encountered issues. Having gone through pain trying to get the Vista version installed I was concerned about the installation process. Well, it worked the first try without any hand holding which was nice. Then I figured I might encounter the problem importing my .pcf file again. Nope! It worked without a hitch. So I have been using the new version for around 3 weeks now and it has performed perfectly. So if you are looking for a VPN Client for Windows 7 64-bit, the NCP Secure Entry Client is again a very good option.

devLink 2009 – Registration Open

john.kellar@edgeofdev.com (John Kellar) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:54:00 +0000

Yesterday, we opened registration for devLink 2009 which is scheduled to take place August 13 – 15, 2009. You can see the sessions that are available on the website (www.devlink.net). This year features more content and we even added an extra day. Content is the key and it is targeted to software developers, architects, project managers, database administrators and more. The best part of devLink is that while it is organized and structured like a major conference it costs much much less. At $100 a ticket (or $75 if you register before April 15) it costs less than two good technical books. Most companies are used to paying over $1000 for similar events. Don't be fooled, just because devLink doesn't cost a small fortune doesn't mean it is cheap. If you want to learn more check out the website at http://www.devlink.net. The devLink 2009 event will take place in Nashville, TN on August 13-15, 2009. Space is limited and the event had sold out every year since 2006.

devLink Technical Conference - Speaker Selection has begun

john.kellar@edgeofdev.com (John Kellar) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 04:31:00 +0000

Earlier this year, we opened the devLink 2009 call for speakers and the response was tremendous. The deadline for submissions was this weekend and the final (revised) count is 71 speakers and 360 potential sessions. When I think about over 70 people willing to travel to Nashville and share their knowledge with other professionals all I can say is WOW! Unfortunately, our space is limited and we will have some tough decisions to make. With registration scheduled to open April 1, 2009 the selection process will be complete soon. Keep watching the devLink website next week as we work to announce the sessions for this year's event.

Come to the Atlanta Code Camp

john.kellar@edgeofdev.com (John Kellar) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:14:00 +0000

The 5th annual Atlanta Code Camp will take place this Saturday, March 14 at the Georgia Gwinnett College. The event is free to attend and they still have space. If you are in the area and are interested in attending you are asked to register http://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=136331. Don't miss out!

Edge Of Dev - CodeMash

john.kellar@edgeofdev.com (John Kellar) — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 22:59:00 +0000

Well, it took some time, but here is a quick episode of Edge Of Dev about the CodeMash conference that I attended early in January. I had a great time at the event which took place in Sandusky, Ohio at the Kalahari resort. Yes, that was Kalahari, not calamari. I think the organizers did a great job and it was a very memorable event. If you haven't been to a conference lately and you are free next January, I recommend you check it out. You can also find this and other episodes at http://www.edgeofdev.com.

Update Virtual PC before installing Windows 7

john.kellar@edgeofdev.com (John Kellar) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:22:00 +0000

I installed Windows 7 as a Virtual PC last night and all went well, except that my mouse responded slowly. So with the operating system in place I attempted to install the Virtual Machine additions. I actually had to run the setup myself because the menu option did not start the process as it had in the past. After the install, I did the obligatory reboot and was shocked to see the blue screen of death. Yep, I said it, and you can see it below.

I immediately had a clue of the cause because I remember hearing that there was a Service Pack released for Virtual PC 2007. It would make sense that Windows 7 would probably need something that was part of that Service Pack. Anyway, I was easily able to repair the system and Windows 7 was working again.

After downloading and installing the Service Pack, which is available here, I attempted to install the Virtual Additions and it worked directly from the menu, which was good sign. After the reboot of Windows 7, I was greeted with the login screen. So lesson learned, you want to confirm you have the latest version of Virtual PC before doing any installs of Windows 7.

devLink 2009 Call for Speakers announced

john.kellar@edgeofdev.com (John Kellar) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 05:44:00 +0000

Tonight I spent several hours working on the devLink website, ugh. If you have any thoughts, please pass them on. I just posted the devLink 2009 Call for Speakers for those who are interested in presenting at the event.

Currently the plan is to have seven (7) tracks and those are fluid based on the session abstracts we receive. We have to find qualified speakers for each track and fill that track. The core tracks will consist of the following:

Client App Dev
Web App Dev
Architecture and Practices
Database
Project Management
Application Lifecycle Management
Open (just that, open game so any type of session will be considered)
Open (In-Depth), these are 3 hours sessions so you can get more detailed than you have before.

If you have an idea you would like to share, please make it known to me. I personally would love to see some systems based sessions, but we will have to see what comes.

The date for submitting your session abstracts is March 13, 2009 and that is a firm date. Every speaker will have to present a minimum of two (2) sessions so I recommend you put in at least 4 ideas, but the more you send in the better off you will be. One more thing that I didn't put in the submission form. I would recommend you put your preferred sessions at the top of the list. It won't get you any special points, but you could get selected quicker with your best ideas being first.

If you have any questions about whether a session would be of interest, please let me know.

Heading to CodeMash

john.kellar@edgeofdev.com (John Kellar) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:19:00 +0000

I am off to attend CodeMash in Sandusky, OH. CodeMash is very similar to devLink in that they put on an event with top notch speakers for a lower price than the big conferences. I cannot comment too much on the event since this will be my first time attending. I do know some of the people that put the event on and I am sure it will be a great time. It is always a good idea to collaborate with other event coordinators to share ideas for what works and what doesn't. As a matter of fact, one of the key players Jim Holmes attended devLink 2008.

If you don't already have a ticket to CodeMash it is a little late. They are sold out for a capacity of 500 which is great. You can still signup for updates so you can stay informed for next year at their website though.