Oct 3

Written by: Will Strohl
10/3/2010 11:31 PM 

The first annual Day of DotNetNuke Chicago just finished up yesterday afternoon for some of us, and in the very early morning hours of today for others.  You know who you are…  It was an incredible time by all accounts.  From the pre-party where speakers, volunteers, and sponsors gathered at a nearby watering hole, to the event and all of its festivities, to the after party event known as DNN After Dark, where everyone joined together to celebrate the end of the event and network for the remainder of the night.  Can you believe that it was a free event to attend?

Organizers

As you read through the details of what happened, please keep in mind that this was not only the first time this event was held in Chicago, but it was also the first time that any of the organizers executed an event of this size or importance.  That should give you plenty of perspective as to how incredible this event really was.  When you look at everything, from the vibrant signage, to the shirts and colorful agendas and matching website, the quality of everything really exceeded the highest standards expected.  You can meet the organizers, Cuong, Ian, Jim, and Don on the Chicago about page.

Photo Courtesy of Oliver Hine via TwitPic

Sponsors

Before we really get into any more of the detail, we really need to discuss the sponsors of this event.  There were quite a few generous sponsors who were directly responsible for making this event happen.  Sure, there were organizers and volunteers, but the sponsors are how you were able to eat, get door prizes, t-shirts, the venue, and more.

Please take a moment today to visit the websites of each of these individual Gold sponsors, and let them know just how much you appreciated their contribution to the event.

There were many other sponsors as well, and they can be seen on the Day of DotNetNuke Chicago Sponsors page.  Altogether, these sponsors helped to raise a lot of money to make this event a success, including paying for a fantastic venue that came with food as part of the deal.

Registration

I normally wouldn’t mention registration unless something really went awry.  However, I found the registration process to be incredibly efficient.  So much so, that I am telling you about it  There wasn’t any confusion, the people checking you in knew exactly what to do, how to handle you, and worked extremely well as a team.  This is usually the one area of any event of this type to have issues, so it was apparent from the first moment that morning that this was going to be an outstanding day!

This event had nearly 250 people pre-registered to attend!

Photo Courtesy of Antonio Chagoury of InspectorIT via Facebook

Keynote

This event was very fortunate to have one of the co-founders of the DotNetNuke Corporation, Nik Kalyani, as the keynote speaker.  Nik is known for being incredibly talented, innovative, and creative in nearly every area that he delves into.  This was no different.  He tackled the keynote speech with a quality, tempo, and level of engagement that you would expect from any TED conference.

Photo Courtesy of Oliver Hine via TwitPic

Nik chose to talk to everyone there about “community.”  Community means different things to everyone, but not everyone participates for any number of reasons.  We were taken through a journey by Nik, defining what a community member is, thanking existing community members, mapping out how large the community really is and what it does, and then he inspired everyone to do more.  Many people were certainly inspired to become the next leaders in the community. 

Download the Keynote Materials

Video was taken of the entire keynote, and will be made available on this website as soon as possible.

Speakers

Very much like the keynote, the speaker list was a veritable who’s who in the DNN community.  There people from DNN teams, like: Brandon Haynes, and Antonio Chagoury; people from the eco-system, such as: Will Morgenweck (Active Modules), Dave Risner (PackFlash), and Ryan Morgan (Arrow Designs); and there were also members of the DNN Corp that included Chris Paterra, and Will Strohl.

 
Photo Courtesy of Oliver Hine 

There wasn’t a single person who was disappointed with the number or quality of the speakers.  Although we unfortunately, missed having Mitchel Sellers due to sickness, the event moved on, and the speakers seemed to wow all of the attendees.

Sessions

Many people attend the Day of DotNetNuke to meet the very people that they’ve been talking to on twitter, Facebook, or the forums.  However, there was no shortage of exceptional topics and content at this event.  There were sessions including: using the cloud, building communities, multi-portal websites, design, mobile development, and even a couple beginner sessions.  Everyone seemed to have something for them at this community conference.

Photo Courtesy of Will Strohl 

Attendees

It is always super-exciting to see all of the attendees at the various Day of DotNetNuke events, and this one was no different.  Similar to the speakers, there were notable community members such as Paul Scarlett, Joe Craig, and Ryan Doom.  There were also many people that we’ve seen on twitter over and over again, but never met, such as Herb Benton (@HerbBenton) and Ron Miles (@lokheed).

Photo courtesy of Oliver Hine via TwitPic

Something that seems to be universal at all DNN events is the willingness to speak to each other, help each other out, and just network with each other in general.  All over the place you could see and hear people talking about their latest DNN projects, clients, and products – and showing these things off too.  Business cards seemed to be flying by left and right, ensuring that these connections would not end after the event.

Volunteers

There is never enough thanks or kudos to thank volunteers at these events.  Like sponsors, you simply can cannot thank them enough.  Without volunteers, things like the registration process would fail or wouldn’t even exist.  Volunteers include the organizers of the event, but there were other people helping out too, including staff from R2Integrated, the wives of the organizers and R2i, and more.  They simply did a phenomenal job!  If anything didn’t go smoothly, these volunteers really did a great job of not letting it affect the event in any way.

Door Prizes

The various sponsors for this Chicago event came through in a big way – especially for the amount of time that they had to respond to requests for support by the organizers.  Everyone that registered was automatically entered to win things like books, software, modules, and even the wildly popular telerik ninjas!

Photo Courtesy Will Strohl 

There were two grand prizes.  The lower of the two was the Playstation3 console, and then the grandest of the grand prizes was an iPad.  The winners of these prizes were excited to say the least.

Parties!

The Day of DotNetNuke Chicago followed a pretty standard formula for code camp-like events.  There was a pre-party where all speakers and volunteers are invited to blow off some steam before the big day, and then the DNN After Dark party following the event where everyone is invited.

Don Bishop is on the right. He’s from Spiffy Web Team, a Bronze sponsor

The pre-party is mostly to thank them all ahead of time for the time and effort that they have and will put in.  Make no mistake…  These events are a LOT of work.  Typically, sponsors are not invited to the pre-parties for events like this – but the DNN community is a much different animal compared to most other communities.  There are often no lines to be drawn between what defines some people as falling into a single category of volunteer, speaker, attendee, or sponsor.

DNN After Dark is always a blast!  When you combine the people from the pre-party with the attendees, all kinds of things can happen.  This is the favorite part of the event for many people.  The best and most productive networking happens here – and it did again.  There were people putting faces in front of brands and companies, twitter friends meeting each other for the first time, and much more.

Video

Throughout the event, video was taken.  There was over 6 hours of footage shot throughout the day and the night.  As the videos get edited and produced, you will begin to see them posted to this website.  Unfortunately, due to this being a community effort, an estimated time of delivery cannot be given.

For More News & Updates

It’s great that you’re reading this blog, but don’t forget to follow the Day of DotNetNuke on twitter, facebook, and Flickr so see, hear, read, and get notified of the latest updates.  How else will you know if the Day of DotNetNuke is coming to a city near you?

Speaking of…  If you want to hold your very own Day of DotNetNuke, you can!  All you need is at least 1 or more people dedicated to organizing the event, and then contact us through the website.