Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Praise for the Colorado Software Summit

In a previous blog entry, I discussed some of the reasons I love attending the Colorado Software Summit. While I personally really like this conference, it is interesting but not surprising to see the numerous "big names" in the industry who have called this their favorite conference. Below are some snippets from others that describe some of their individual reasons for liking this conference so much. While the 2008 edition is in the books, I look forward to the 2009 edition in late October 2009.


The following quotations are in reverse chronological order. The hyperlinks on the dates point to the original source of the quotation. Several of these have much more descriptive detail than shown here and so are worth clicking on to read those details.


"Last week, I attended the Colorado Software Summit. This conference took place at the Keystone Ski Resort; located at over 9000 feet in altitude (over 2.8km). It was my first time attending the conference and also my first time as a (public) speaker. I have to say that I was very impressed with the conference. First of all, the format of the conference is very different than more 'traditional' software conferences: every speaker is required to present 2 different topics, 3 times each. The net effect is that it is easy to catch a topic since it is repeated 3 times. It also makes every session much more convivial since the number of participants is smaller, thus making it easy to ask questions and interact with the speakers. At the end of the week, it really felt like we were part of a family."
- Yan Pujante (LinkedIn), 28 October 2008

"I spent last week at 9300ft above the sea level at Keystone (CO) attending the Colorado Software Summit. This is one of the best conferences I have attended in a long time, with just about 300 attendees and serious sessions with very little fluff and absolutely no product/vendor pitch of any kind. This is one conference that I can recommend to any one who value their money and time spent on conferences."
- Subbu Allamaraju (Yahoo!, BEA), 26 October 2008

"... my favorite conference begins in Keystone, Colorado. The reason I like it so much is because it's an annual gathering (this will be my 4th year) with friends and it's somewhat like a vacation, except you get to learn a lot."
- Matt Raible (LinkedIn), 9 October 2008

"The Conference That's Worth Attending: I speak at loads of conferences, but there's one I have been attending for nearly a decade which I'd like to recommend you consider. Every year I go the content is spot on, and I know I have to find new insights for the audience in my annual keynote because they are all probably more qualified to be speaking than I am. [... goes on to list many positive characteristics/benefits of the conference...]"
- Simon Phipps (Sun Microsystems), 5 October 2008

"If you are not familiar with the conference, you should take a look. One look at the full schedule and you will see that (like every year), they’ve got some world-class developers talking about some hot topics ... Some other things that make this conference different and better than the rest:"
- Dave Landers (Oracle, BEA), 3 October 2008, emphasis added

"If you've been following this blog for any length of time, you'll know how highly I value the Software Summit. If you can only make it to one software conference this year, this is the one you should go to. You'll learn things that will save you an enormous amount of time and you'll meet some of the best people in the industry."
- Mike Bowler (Gargoyle Software), 3 October 2008

"Repeatedly, this has been one of my favorite events to attend. I think I have only missed the conference twice and every time, except one, ... Over the years I have made a lot of friends and met a lot of very smart people during the week of the event. If you have followed my blog for a while you may have seen a few of the photos I have posted of the beautiful mountain village of Keystone, where the event takes place. That is another side benefit of attending! The conference also does a good job of keeping up with industry trends."
- Kelvin Lawrence (IBM), 30 March 2007 (see also 3 October 2008: "This really is one of the weeks of the year that I really look forward to.")

"For several years I have been a regular presenter at the Colorado Software Summit, an exceptional conference with a reputation for technical excellence and speakers of the highest caliber."
- Simon Roberts (Dancing Cloud Services, Sun Microsystems), Undated


For a large set of additional recommendations to make Colorado Software Summit a must-stop for software developers, see the feedback to Bill Dudney's 2 November 2003 blog entry.

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