An independent .NET conference
At the last developer user group, a discussion around .NET and the community arose where an issue was identified: because Microsoft does such a good job of communicating around .NET, anything outside their purview is pretty much ignored. The example given was that open-source initiatives don’t receive enough coverage at major events. My response was: Why doesn’t the community run its own .NET event?
The idea would target a .NET audience but not limit content strictly to .NET—meaning you could present on Perl, for example. However, as the audience is .NET-focused, it would make sense to tailor the talk to topics relevant to their interests and address their concerns. I ran a small poll to gauge the response.
425 people viewed the poll, but only 35 completed it 🙁.
Looking at the data (hint: that link takes you to the live report), it seems that:
- Free vs. cost isn’t a major issue—I think the key factor is whether there’s perceived value; if people see it as worthwhile, they’ll pay.
- Weekday vs. Saturday: A weekday seems far more popular than a Saturday.
- Multi-track vs. single-track: A multi-track format is significantly more popular than a single-track event.
- Location: Johannesburg is overwhelmingly favored—Cape Town and Durban trail by a fraction (though the chart colors don’t align logically—biggest is always blue, which doesn’t make sense).
So what’s next? I’m uncertain—the numbers are surprisingly low, which suggests either that we, as a community, are poor at promoting such events, or that there may not be enough demand. Your thoughts?
Some analytical information:
