cf.Objective()

In early 2005 (like January 12, 2005), I started getting involved in OO, more involved in applying software engineering principles to my code, and shooting for something a big higher than "does the code run fast?" As part of that, I started looking for good information from CFers for CFers about applying these principles, many of which were expressed in ways that don't apply well to ColdFusion... and I was coming up short.

There were a couple of blogs out there (one of them was mine) that were OK. There were a couple of email lists that were out there, but they were either pretty quiet or way too busy. Largely, though, there wasn't much in the way of good information for people interested in engineering good, solid ColdFusion software. So I happened to mention to Sean Corfield that a conference for ColdFusion programmers was in order, at least in my opinion.

He agreed. I blogged it. Then I forgot about it.

A couple months went by and I started getting lots of questions from people about the conference, and round about a year after I'd first started looking at the idea, I started trying to put it into action. Subsequently, we held cf.Objective() 2006 in a smallish hotel in Bloomington, MN, just across the freeway from the airport and about 3 blocks from the Mall of America. While the venue wasn't ideal (I only had 3 months to plan and execute the conference!), the event was a hit, and we started planning for cf.Objective() 2007 almost as soon as it was over.

For the second year, we got a designer to sponsor a new look-and-feel that was much better than the dark and dismal layout I'd created for year one... but I never had the time, nor the resources, to actually create a reasonably robust site. Registration was still an issue, as was the timely delivery of content to the users of the site. We had a bigger and better committee, but I was still responsible for a large part of the work and all the work that had to be done on the site. Still, somehow we muddled through and ended up going from 100 people the first year to 250 the second year!

This year, we got sponsored by the kind folks at Savvy Software with a copy of their CMS... so people can deliver content when they're ready with it, instead of having to wait for me to get it online. We have a much larger committee, with subcommittees and delegation and everything! From the buzz I hear, we stand a very good chance of not just growing by the 150% we did between years one and two but of actually selling the conference out!

(READ: Be sure to register as early as you can to makes sure you get a spot, because I expect there won't be any left by Feb/March.)

Anyway... the conference is growing and growing because we have good people running it, excellent speakers and a very vivid and interested community full of people with an intense desire to learn and improve their skills. The success of the conference is in your hands... so far, you've all done an excellent job.