CodeMash is Nearly Here -- And Why You Should Care

CodeMash is just a few days away!  If you're not considering coming then let me throw out a few points to perhaps help sway your mind:

1. Cost.  CodeMash is ridiculously cheap, even with the Early Bird window expired: $175.  Other conferences charge thousands.   Hotel rooms are $88 per night, but you'll need to move exceedingly fast since the room block is filling up!
2. Content.  The schedule of sessions is on par with any national-level conference, and the mix of disciplines is unlike anything else you can find.  No other conference, regional or national, brings together folks from Java, Ruby, .NET, PHP, etc. under one roof to share experiences.
3. Networking.  Making new contacts is one of the greatest benefits at any conference.  CodeMash will give you the opportunity to reach out to a wide range of folks you wouldn't normally be able to hook up with.
4. Cool Factor.  It's at a freakin' indoor water park!

Training budgets are always a huge PITA, and it's sometimes tough to convince management of the value of conferences.  If you're in the latter category then offer up to management some of these points:

1. Time to Market.  New ideas on how to solve problems will help you deliver solutions more quickly.
2. Quality to Market.  Exposure to different testing approaches and tools will help you increase the quality of code you're developing.
3. Innovative Products and Solutions.  See the blurbage for the first point.  You'll be exposed to any number of new things at CodeMash.
4. Skills Development.  Management needs to recognize good developers for the extremely scarce resource they are.  Care and feeding of good developers should be a priority.   CodeMash will help motivate you and get you fired up in all kinds of new ways.  (If you're in a place that doesn't treat you well, then contact me via the link on the sidebar and I'll help you get in touch with folks at a place that does value its devs -- Quick is sending nearly 30 of its technical staff.)

"But my work is for internal projects, not things we release to market!" you say.  Fine.  Those internal projects still have customers -- the company staff who are using them.  Just flip the blurbage to point to your internal folks.  You should be thinking of them as real customers anyway, because that's what they really are.

CodeMash is an extremely unique opportunity for you to attend a world-class conference at an extremely cheap price.