CodeMash 2016 Top 5 Wrap-Up

CodeMash v2.0.1.6 Top 5 Wrap-Up

I can’t think of a better way to kick off 2016 than to spend a week hanging out with a couple thousand of my closest friends talking tech, sharing expertise, having drinks, playing games, and grossly exceeding the water slide weight limit to see how fast a raft carrying four developers will go. CodeMash is more than just a series of presentations, so here are a handful of things that made CodeMash v2.0.1.6 magnificent:

5) The 7 Languages in 7 Hours

Our 2016 CodeMash experience began with a pre-compiler workshop where Amber Conville guided us in writing a prime factorization calculator using Ruby, Clojure, Haskell, Rust, Scala, Elixir and Go. Mary recently graduated from Nashville Software School and neither of us had any experience with these languages, so it was quite the adventure exploring them together. Our brains were fried by the end of the day, but how often can you say you learned seven new languages before dinner!

4) The Star Wars

It’s no surprise that a conference held less than one month after the newest Star Wars movie hit theaters would be flush with droids and light sabers. It seemed like most of the sponsors were raffling off some sort of Jedi-related prize, but TMW Systems led the pack with a package containing multiple Lego sets, one of which was the Millenium Falcon! With over 2,500 fellow Star Wars fans lusting over such epic prizes, what a surprise to find out I’d be taking it home! It must have been the Jedi skills we developed waging hotel-room light saber battles that gave my raffle entry the edge.

3) The Catan Big Game

We’re big into board games and particularly fond of Settlers of Catan since Mayfair Games sent me to GenCon to play in the Catan National Tournament. One of my favorite events at GenCon was the Catan Big Game, where hundreds of players complete in a single game that spans an entire ballroom. The CodeMash Big Game was significantly smaller, but no less fun.

2) The Wild Rides

What happens when you send a raft carrying 800 lbs of developers down a toilet-bowl shaped water slide? It’s hard to explain, but I guarantee you’ll want to do it again! While I did miss snowball fights in the outdoor hot tubs, we found ways to entertain ourselves in the water park.

1) The Conference Reunions

As the excitement of the day dies down and dinner turns into drinks at the bar, the focus shifts from technology and networking to spending time with old friends, many of whom only see each other at conferences. Many of my most cherished CodeMash memories involve a bottle of bourbon or a game of Cards Against Humanity. The best often include both, but those are stories for another time.

0) The Community

None of the above experiences would have been as memorable without such an amazing community. The CodeMash organizers have accomplished something truly amazing by preserving the sense of camaraderie and acceptance one tends to find at smaller events. I can’t thank them enough for the example they have set and look forward to following in their footsteps with Music City Code.

If you made it to CodeMash this year, I hope my wrap-up triggered some happy nostalgia. Feel free to share your favorite CodeMash moment in the comments below.

For those who did not attend, maybe we’ll see you next year. Just remember to pack your swimsuit, some business cards, and a bottle to share with the new friends you’ll meet!

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Music City Code Conference - How it All Began

Conception
I started contemplating starting a new technical conference in January of 2013 a couple years after DevLink moved from Nashville to Chattanooga. I noticed relatively few Nashville area developers who had previously attended DevLink were unable to afford attending so far from home.

As I pondered the reasons for starting a new conference, I realized it had very little to do with attending training sessions. The most valuable aspect of technical conferences seemed to be people I met and interaction that took place. I started floating around the idea of creating a conference centered around interaction and registered the domain name DevInteraction.

Initiation
The most important aspects of planning a conference are the date and location so I started investigating venues and creating a calendar of regional conferences. I quickly realized that hotels and convention centers were not only costly to rent, but often implement vendor restrictions which drive the cost up further. There were also very few breaks in the conference schedule where a new event wouldn't compete with an established one for speakers. I decided to focus on work and put conference planning on the back burner.

Analysis
Over the next couple years the conference concept continued to evolved. While presenting at Code on the Beach, I mentioned the idea to the president, Paul Irwin. He pointed out that Nashville is the "Music City" and would make a great location for a destination conference. That got me thinking about all the music related gatherings that take place in the Nashville IT community and how we might include these types of events in a conference.

Fast forward to February of 2015 when John Kellar announced that he had decided to retire DevLink. All of the sudden there was a giant gap in the conference schedule, but we were in the midst of repairing major damage to our house from a water leak and planning an April wedding, so I had no bandwidth to take on a new project.

Design
As luck had it, I found myself with extra free time after the wedding and decided it was now or never to get this new conference off the ground. The previous month I had served as a mentor and judge for an event at Lipscomb, which had given me the opportunity to start a conversation about hosting the conference there. From there the pieces started to fall into place.

DevLink had been held at the end of August and it just happened that Saturday, August 29th was available. I asked for advice from all the conference organizers I knew and most of them suggested starting small for the first year and focusing on quality over quantity, so we decided to limit registration. By the time we hammered out a budget, timeline and other major aspects we were already into late June with just over two months to recruit volunteers, set up social media, gather speaker submissions, solicit sponsors, create a schedule, launch a website, market the event, design shirts and order printed material such as signs and programs.

Development
So that's where we're at now. We have been fortunate to receive guidance from many regional conference organizers (see board members below), but we still need quite a few volunteers and are working on recruiting both sponsors and speakers, but I'm optimistic that we can pull this together and put on a great first year!

Want to help out? Here are some easy ways everyone can help:
Follow @MusicCityCode on Twitter and retweet our announcements!
We also post updates to LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+.

Interested in speaking? Submit a session!
If speaking isn't your thing, we could certainly use your help as a volunteer.
Maybe your company would be interested in sponsoring.

A special thanks to our board members for their invaluable advice:
John Kellar (DevLink Founder & Executive Director)
Chad Green (Code PaLOUsa Conference Chair)
Chuck Bryant (Plugged In Board Member & BarCamp Organizer)
Jonathan Mills (Kansas City Developer Conference Director)
Lee Brandt (Kansas City Developer Conference Director)
Phil Japikse (Cincinnati Day of Agile Founder)
Jeffrey Strauss (St. Louis Days of .NET Principal Organizer)

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Growing IT Talent in Nashville

This week's Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce newsletter asked for input to help Nashville grow. Being in IT, the first thing I thought of as a barrier to growth is the lack of top IT talent. Middle Tennessee colleges and universities churn out a staggering number of IT students, however the skills taught in class only go so far towards preparing those students for growth in the workplace. For many, this growth is spring-boarded by attending conferences where they receive exposure to new technologies, training in vital skills, and connect with other professionals outside their organization. Conferences draw the best and brightest from surrounding states as both presenters and attendees, which provides a unique opportunity to market Nashville as a city of potential employers as well as establishing a reputation of excellence.

Below is the comment I submitted to the Chamber of Commerce. Please post any comments or suggestions you might have at the bottom of this article or tag me on twitter (@gainesk).

The technology sector seems to be driving much of Nashville's growth, however our current workforce is having trouble keeping up and may hinder continued growth. While various special interests have formed strong communities around specific technologies and products, Nashville is sorely lacking in regionally recognized technology focused events focused on educating and connecting both local and national talent. Local government needs to get more involved in helping to facilitate these events by making venues available and connecting organizers with sponsorship. The result will be a stronger reputation for Nashville as a technology hub on the National stage, higher standards for education and training of talent, and attracting top talent from other cities by showcasing what Nashville has to offer.

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New Talks Available

If you're in need of a speaker for your user group or conference, I'm now offering a more extensive list of talks including some oldies that have been recently updated as well as new content.

How to Be a Six Figure Developer

Microsoft .NET developers are in extremely high demand and rates continue to climb, but many developers have not yet realized their potential. In this talk we lay out some simple and proven ways to make yourself a more valuable employee and build your personal brand.

Going Solo - Independent Consulting for Jedis

Leaving a perm position to go independent is a huge decision. We'll discuss whether consulting is right for you, what to watch out for and things you can do to help ensure success.

Introduction to Model-View-Controller (MVC4)

The move from ASP.NET to MVC can be quite daunting. In this talk we discuss the core concepts, why they will make your life easier, and present some best practices to ensure the move to MVC is as painless as possible.

Build a MVC eCommerce Site in Under 5 Minutes

Did you know that you can launch a fully functional MVC eCommerce storefront in mere minutes? Not only does nopCommerce offer extensive functionality for free, but it's a great way to become more familiar with MVC, WPF, Entity Framework and LINQ.

Customizing nopCommerce with Plugins and Themes

This talk picks up where we left off with Building MVC eCommerce Sites and shows how nopCommerce can be easily customized using plugins and themes without having to modify the original source code. This approach allows for quick and easy upgrades as new versions of nopCommerce are released.

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New Talk - Going Solo

I'm working on a new talk for Bar Camp Nashville and have never had so much fun putting together a presentation. The title of my talk is, "Going Solo - How to Train Your Wookiee" and am going with a Star Wars theme. Here's what I've got so far:

Description: When you started you were but the learner, now you are the master. You can make the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs, but you're getting tired of Greedo and Jabba demanding a cut. If you dream of being your own man, join us in discussing how to choose and outfit your ship to embark on the quest for freedom.

Topics:

• Opening Introduction - "I'm Gaines Kergosien, I'm here to rescue you."
• Getting Rich - “Wealth...more than you can imagine.”, “I don’t know. I can imagine quite a bit.”
• Possible Pitfalls - "I've got a bad feeling about this."
• You Can Do It - "I find your lack of faith disturbing."
• Marketing Yourself - "The Force is strong with this one."
• Creating a Company - "Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?"
• Contractor Agreements - "Let’s just say we’d like to avoid any imperial entanglements."
• Managing Finances - "Into the garbage chute, flyboy!"
• Paying Taxes - "The Phantom Menace"
• Tax Deductions - "These aren't the taxes you're looking for."
• Working Remotely - "You're all clear, kid! Now lets blow this thing and go home!"
• Subcontractors - "Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope."

Special thanks to Scott Walters and Philip Wilson for helping brainstorm ideas for the talk.

UPDATE:
The schedule has been finalized and we'll be in the Cadillac Ranch Poker room at 3:45pm on October 20th.

UPDATE 2:
Here's a quick preview of a few title slides from the presentation:

UPDATE 3:
We'll be streaming live at http://www.livestream.com/barcampnashville5

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HTML5 Mobile Development

I received an email this morning with the master schedule for Code PaLOUsa and it looks like I'll be speaking on HTML5 Mobile Development. I'd love feedback on the session topic/description.

One of the biggest hurdles for mobile development is bridging the gap between incompatible platforms. From the very beginning HTML has been the only true cross platform solution and, with the introduction of HTML5, developers are now able to create rich applications. Microsoft has even begun shifting away from Silverlight and stated at PDC that HTML5 is the future. This session will provide the tools and techniques you need to get started developing mobile applications using HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript.

Also, here's what I came up with for a speaker bio. I'm sure it could use some tweaking and would appreciate input.

Gaines Kergosien is a .NET Solutions Consultant for TEKsystems and is currently working with HCA Physician Services. Gaines founded the Nashville Web Developer Group and serves as a board member for the Nashville .NET User Group. With over 12 years in solutions development using Microsoft technologies, his work includes consulting for such companies as Lexis Nexis, Gibson Guitars, and Cardinal Healthcare.

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