Down Under in Australia, MXDU Ruled!

I have got to say that MXDU has got to be the coolest conference I have ever been to, and also had the pleasure and honor to speak at. I've read lots of others saying that is was really really great in the past but it's most definitely something that had to be experienced to understand.

I actually arrived on the starting day of the conference at 7:30 in the morning. I really wish I could have gone a lot earlier (as in an earlier date not time) because being that I was going from Tokyo there is only a 2 hour dif which means I left at night, had no sleep on the plane and arrived in the morning.. Needless to say I was pretty exhausted for the day.

I managed to get to the first keynote only 15 minutes late, which was pretty good considering that you get x-rayed *leaving* the airport in Australia. That is definitely a first for me. Getting a taxi was hell too in that there was already a line up of about 150 people trying to get taxis to the city too.

So anyways, the keynote finished up and off to the sessions everybody goes. All of the speakers at MXDU were first class. They really know their stuff and it was really interesting watching them go at it. As in go at the X-Box Halo 2 room! I think whenever they weren't in their own sessions, they were all congregated in this one room with 4 X-Box machines all hooked up together playing Halo 2. It was pretty cool though.

I gotta say the best thing for me really was the fact that I could meet all the people that I've only heard or read about and finally put a face to them. There were also some reunions there (Chafic, Mike Downey, Geoff and Julie just to name a few) and that was pretty cool in itself.

On the first night after the sessions were finished up there was a treasure hunt with all the people that were going to attend the banquet. What happened was that we were all split up into groups of 8 or so and ran off to take pictures of things around the Darlington harbour. But it wasn't that the "targets" were written out in plain english, they had a riddle approach to them. So anyways, I was in the team "Tincan" with 6 others and it was a blast as we ran around and took pictures of really weird things. The funniest part of it all was that we would actually get more "points" if we could get total strangers in the pics with us. So we did! I'll try to post all the polaroids of what we took later (they're all in one picture that I took with my digital). Here's the collage we did (we didn't win though, the "Microsoft Team" won..)

And of course "Team Tincan" in it's glory :D (minus Geoff on the far right)

The banquet was excellent. The food was good, the entertainment was fantastic with a jazz band and a comedian that was actually posing as a waiter the whole time we were there! He was a riot!! For the first little while we couldn't figure out what was up with him. He kept saying really weird things all the time and doing weird stuff that was just... odd. When we all figured out he was a hired comedian it all came together. Here are a couple of pics of him giving massages to Mike and Grant (this was before we knew he was a comedian).

The second day was just as good if not better than the first. The keynote was really cool with a few new things shown for 8 ball. And Mike Downey showed off some mobile stuff which was pretty neat. We do mobile stuff too but it's only for Japan at the moment.. so a bit different.

After that keynote my session was up, Flash Video Capering. It went really well if I do say so myself, and I think it hit the right spot with the people who managed to make it to the session. I found though that MXDU is really tuned towards developers so my session on video wasn't as popular as maybe it would be at a full Flash conference. Anyways, I'll post my files, and preso in another post though as I'd like to get some extra thoughts in with it that'll just make this post insanely long. I was definitely honoured to be speaking at MXDU and I really hope they have me back there next year as there is NO WAY IN THE WORLD I would turn it down. MXDU rules!!

So, after the sessions that day there was a quick round robin session which stuck all the MM people up on the stage to answer questions (which again were pretty much all Coldfusion..) and then it was gift time for the speakers. Geoff and Julie were fantastic in their gift choosing I think. We all got wine bottle carriers (leather at that) with Tiffany's glasses to go with them. AND this goes with the cool bag and even cooler knife that came with the set that everybody gets for attending the conference itself! Beauty. It's also a unaminous vote that the knife is not "shwag". Which is a new word for me which means "stuff that you get at a conference". Mainly because most of the stuff that you get, you toss out. I gotta say though that the knife isn't going in the garbage for anyone. Very cool stuff.

And to top it all off, Julie and Geoff had a bunch of us over at their "palace" in the middle of Sydney for a party. Thanks guys for the great hosting!! Amazing place, and way to go on getting the waterfall working. Here's a pic of that:

Anyways this post is getting a little lengthly so I'll stick my seperate thoughts on Australia (plus pics), my preso and side notes, and also what we did the day after the conference. I gotta say in finality though that Geoff and Julie deserve huge kudos for the conference they put on. I don't think that even one person was dissappointed at the end of the day. It was an amazing experience. Thanks guys. Also, Australia is really really cool. I'm definitely going back for some R&R the first chance I get and travel around a lot more than I could this time.

If you have read this far.. thank you :D. That was a long entry.

Posted by Graeme at February 21, 2005 10:21 AM