Well, sorta back; I’m waiting for my flight back to Atlanta at the Akron/Canton airport. Overall, I think this year’s Spring Break conference went well, at least what bits of it I had time to see. The first night, there was a speaker’s dinner at a swanky restaurant within Baker Center at Ohio University called Latitude 39. It was nice to get to chat with some of the other speakers in advance of the conference.

Code samples and slides online here. Video (with slides) can be found here.

For accommodations, the university paid for a night’s stay at the Ohio University Inn. It’s pretty much Athens’ only “hotel”, but it was quite nice. Some last-minute slide rehearsal and tweaks, and it was up again at 6am to get ready for the big day.

The opening session dealt with how the linguistics department was doing English-language training for students all over the world using Adobe Connect. I’d frankly never really thought much about Connect, but their demo, while sort of clunky at times, really made me want to check it out.

Next, I decided to sit in on another session to kill time before my talk. This one was entitled “Get Into an AIR Application Using ActionScript 3″. I was hoping this would be more of an entry-level Adobe Air presentation, but it was incredibly complex, at least to me. Even though I’ve dabbled a bit in Air and even Actionscript, I only recognized fragments of what he was talking about. I think the guy is totally sharp and knows his stuff. I just feel he was talking at a WAY higher level than the typical Spring Break audience. Thankfully, I had an excuse to duck out early to get ready for my talk.

The room for my talk was somewhat of a mini-theater, in that it had two rows of seats with an aisle down the middle, a podium and screen at the far end. I think it probably seated maybe 75. As usual, I had a bit of trouble initially getting my Macbook set up the way I wanted with the projector, but not too bad.

To be honest, I didn’t feel super nervous. I was nervous, yes, but oddly not as much as I was to give the talk to my co-workers. I think it may be because I don’t really know the audience at a conference. So if I bomb, I never have to see those people again. If I blow it at work, I have to see those people every day

Actually, my nervousness jumped up to eleven when I looked up and sitting in the audience was none other than Eric Meyer himself. Holy crap. Hopefully this realization did not affect my performance much.

Overall I think the talk went well and I’m satisfied with my performance, especially this being my first talk at my first conference. The head count was somewhere around 58, which isn’t too shabby, given the overall attendance of the conference.

Once my session let out, we had lunch and attended Eric Meyer’s keynote “The Emerging Craftsman”. Overall, a pretty good talk. Never heard Eric speak before, but it’s clear he’s been doing it for a while.

Next, we attended the MooTools session. Figured it was always good to see what the non-jQuery world is up to. Unfortunately, the talk was pretty-high level, with little beginner-digestible information. And it was clear the presenter was super nervous, which didn’t help. It was still a good effort, and I’m sure a couple people got something out of it. Didn’t make me want to switch to MooTools, though.

The rest of the day, just kinda hung around waiting for the end-of-day session with Eric. Actually skipped the next-to-last session to go out foraging for coffee on the streets of Athens. Got totally drenched in the rain, but the iced latte was totally worth it.

Eric’s last session was a combination tutorial and Q&A session. He presented a table-based browser timeline that was actually executed in a really interesting, clever way. Hoping he makes it available on the web. I also finally learned what the hell microformats were, and how cool they could be for our clients.

Thankfully, I had a chance to speak with Eric a couple times. I knew I was setting myself up for a smackdown, but I had to know what he thought of my talk. He said he was only in it for maybe the middle third, but what he thought what he saw of it was pretty good. We also talked a bit about things like jQuery, CSS3 and microformats. Was really glad to get the chance to meet him, albeit briefly.

Would’ve liked to have hung around for the post-conference mixer, but had another engagement and it was starting to get nasty outside. My thoughts on the conference? Overall I think it went well. It wasn’t without flaws and room for improvement. Baker Center is a fabulous venue and I’d be happy to see it held there next year. The parking is kind of bad, though, which is partially because of some nearby construction. Hopefully that can be coordinated better next year.

I think if I had what could be considered an actual “complaint”, it would be ensuring the subject matter and level of complexity fit more within the average audience member. I can only speak to the two sessions I sat in on that were really not geared towards beginners at all. True, the conference should not be all-newbie, either. But there needs to be a better mix and some indication to the guest what they’re getting themselves into. I’d even suggest going so far as to “pre-screen” presenters’ outlines and/or slides, if for no other reason than to classify them by how advanced they are.

Didn’t get a chance to see me there? I’ve put the slides and code examples online, which you can find here. The university videotaped each session and they’ll have those available in podcast form, although I’m not sure of the timeline. Luckily I was fortunate enough to have a buddy make the trip to Athens to videotape it as well. This way, I have a copy I can edit myself and mix in my slide screens. I hope to have this online within the next few days.

Once the video is online, I’d appreciate any comments, questions or other feedback anyone might have. Spring Break 2009 is March 25th!

Update: Video is now online.

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