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Our first acts_as_conference was a great success (IMO). We did a survey to see what our attendees thought. We had 60 attendees of the 67 survey takers complete the survey. Here are the results:

Where did you travel from to attend acts_as_conference?

States represented:
Countries represented: USA, Venezuela

How would you rate the conference overall?
Awesome: 25.4%
Great: 52.2%
It was okay: 20.9%
Lame: 1.5%

Did the speakers we had influence your decision to attend the conference?
Yes: 73%
No: 27%

Please provide an overall rating for our speakers.
Quality of talk: 57.1%
Depth of knowledge: 49.2%
Fun to listen to: 52.4%

*Used a scale of awesome to sub-par - great rating is shown.

Did the topics presented influence your decision to attend the conference?
Yes: 66.7%
No: 33.3%

How would you rate the quality of topics?
Awesome: 19%
Great: 57.1%
Okay: 22.2%
Lame: 1.6%

How would you rate the level of the topics?
Newbie: 20.6%
Intermediate: 82.5%
Expert: 17.5%

How would you rate the depth of the topics?
Ocean: 4.8%
Lake: 60.3%
Pond: 30.2%
Puddle: 4.8%

Did the sponsors we had effect your decision to attend the conference?
Yes: 12.9%
No: 87.1%

Some feedback we received (unedited)

• Excellent Job. Please make lunch break longer. Restaurants withing walking distance had long waiting lists on Saturday and there was insufficient time to travel anywhere else.
• First of all, I appreciate the fact that you took the initiative to put the conference together, so please don’t take the feedback the wrong way. With that said, I was hoping to see more examples of code and working projects, rather than hearing about theories and certain peoples’ philosophies. for example: The Rails on Air talk was great because it was an actual demonstration. It would have been nice to have seen demos of Merb. I also like Luke Franl’s talk because he mentioned specific plugins. On the other hand, I love The Rails Way book, but I found Obie’s keynote to be totally worthless. I didn’t feel that there was much to Charles Brian Quinn’s presentation either. In closing, I’ll just say that I’d like to see more code and demos and less talk and theorizing. But again, I REALLY appreciate your putting the conference on..
• Although I rated the conference as “just OK” I benefited greatly by meeting many new contacts in the RoR community. I had to leave during the multimedia presentation on Saturday so I missed the “in the trenches” and the closing keynote. Perhaps greater emphasis on how RoR is getting the job done in business and web 2.0 apps rather then focusing so much on the “inerds.” Birds of a feather small groups could focus on specialty topics allowing general topics to concentrate on the proliferation of Rails (i.e. evangelizing). I know that this was a stab at beginning the RoR movement here in Florida and overall I had a great experience. Bryan Liles, Dan Benjamin, and Charles Nutter provided entertaining and quite educational talks. Liles’ delivery and style kept me interested.
• As I mentioned to you, do a like 30 min of lightning talks. Plan for the conference earlier so you can get a better location. $60 cab fair sucked.
• The lunch time needs to be longer. It was hard to get back in time for the afternoon session. One thing to look at in the room is stuff hanging from the ceiling. I was up front but in the back it was tough to see the projector. Power issues were fixed but WiFi was annoying. The sign up for the charity session was not obvious. It would be nice if it was part of the conference sign up. Other than that…I would come back for sure next year!!
• definitely a different venue… that place was terribly suited for a technical conference. Between the poor internet connection, the noise coming from the kitchen through the door that wouldn’t fully close to the wedding DJ interupting the most important talk of the entire conference - not well suited at all for our needs.
• I’m new to Ruby and Rails and am only just now about to start on my first real project. I thought the level was just right. I was able to get quite a bit out of it but at the same time I don’t think it was too boring for the experts. I think topics on usability are very important but there isn’t much meat on the bone so more time spent on real world practical advice would be better. Also, sponsors, as great as they are, tend to gloss over pitfalls so some balance would be good. Overall, it was very well done. One of the best conferences I’ve attended. Thanks for all of your efforts!
• More tracks and a slightly nicer hotel.
• There was a lot of topics that covered the “you should do this” and less about the how you should do it. The methodology. Brian L. was an awesome speaker, and very entertaining; but I didn’t walk out of that session with anything I couldn’t have found with a Google search. The same went with the Rails on AIR topic and the Media in your app topic. There were some really great speakers though, and I have to admit that it was the two keynotes and the charity session with Ezra that got me excited about the conference. There was also some really great topics that I was surprised about, Neals, CBQs, and more. If I was going to suggest anything is that the topics next year should have more depth. They should be more then just slides, I want to hear the whys and hows of things.
• I won’t make the obvious complaint about wifi. While the presentations were good, it would have been great if more attendees were talking code between presentations! At one point, I was discussing the coding of an application with Greg Pederson and others were listening in, and suddenly the conference took on a very different feel for me! I found myself wishing there was more code chat. What can the conference organizers do to encourage this? I dunno! Maybe organize a hackfest or two… Maybe with a built-in contest like Rails Rumble. Who knows? More code!

Hey all,

Here are the slides from acts_as_conference. We have audio on the way (soon) and are checking on the video that was taken as well. As more slides come up we will update this post. Thanks.

Advanced DSLs in Ruby - Neal Ford
Working with others: Best Practices for Rails Teams - Luke Francl
Shining a Light on the Dark Magic of ActiveRecord - Anthony Eden
Smarticus University: BDD With RSpec - Bryan Liles
Adding Media to Your Rails Application - Dave Naffis and Josh Owens
Lessons from the Trenches – Learning from the Rails Bootcamp - Charles Brian Quinn

Having raised $3,186 thanks to 66 attendees, I declare the Acts_As_Conference charity session a success. It would not have been possible without the help of Evan and Ezra from Engine Yard who donated their time to both teach us about Merb and Rubinius, and help us raise money for charity. Thanks again guys!

We are happy to announce that there are now 0 tickets left for acts_as_conference. We will see all you peeps on Friday. Come hungry for knowledge. Rails For All will be paying for both snack times and a continental breakfast on Saturday. Also, in a switch up on the vendor talk, Sun technology evangelist Brian Leonard will, “take the well know Depot application, and *gasp*, incorporate Java. Along the way we’ll look at some ‘other cool stuff’.” All that in 15 minutes, is something we are waiting to see.

The AAC charity session is doing great with more than 40 attendees and more than $2200 raised for charity. With everything happening in the Merb and Rubinius worlds you don’t want to miss the charity session.

Thanks to all of the AAC sponsors, including Sun Microsystems and Engine Yard.

There are only 26 tickets left for acts_as_conference. If you know anyone that has been waiting tell them to boogie on over to http://www.actsasconference.com and sign up. There will be coffee, food, free shwag, prizes, and of course a rock star line up of speakers and sponsors. And speaking of which, the sponsor talks will be rocking too. Sun’s Brian Leonard will take the well know Depot application, and *gasp*, incorporate Java. Along the way he’ll look at some “other cool stuff” (hint: stuff you’ll wish TextMate could do). That is a major difference from the usual vendor talk so don’t miss it after the FREE Rails For All sponsored breakfast on Saturday morning.

The charity session being held by Engine Yard and featuring Ezra Zygmuntowicz and Evan Phoenix is filling up as well. So far we have raised more than $1600 for charity. If you attend you could win a free 3-slice configuration for a year! Combine that with hearing Ezra and Evan talk shop and you can’t lose for a tax-free donation of $50. Eat some breakfast, get a tax break, and come listen to these guys. It’s a win-win.

And if that wasn’t enough, Bradley Taylor of Rails Machine is hosting a party at Kirkman Ale House Friday night from 7pm-9pm. Free beer and appetizers for all.

We can’t thank all of our sponsors enough for their great generosity in making this event a success. See you next weekend!

There are now less than two weeks to go until acts_as_conference, the awesome two-day Rails conference hosted by Rails For All, here in sunny Orlando, Florida. We have over 100 people registered, have raised more than $1500 for charity, and more people are signing up every day. This is going to be a great event with awesome speakers, great food, a rockin party, and kick ass prizes. We look forward to seeing everyone next weekend here in Orlando.

Obie Fernandez reports on the InfoQ site that Engine Yard, a prominent Rails hosting company and a platinum sponsor of acts_as_conference, has obtained $3.5 million in a round of funding from Benchmark Capital. Donate $50 and see Ezra and Evan of Engine Yard talk at the AAC charity session about how to enhance your Ruby programming and how to build an application using Merb and Rubinius.

This is great news for Engine Yard and the Rails community. Congratulations to Engine Yard.

Ezra and Evan have sent the acts_as_conference team the details of what they are going to speak about at the charity session:

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Coding at the next level: Patterns, Idioms, and Style

Evan and Ezra will talk about tips and techniques to make you a better ruby programmer. They’ll cover how to approach problems and break them up into well designed pieces. Rather than simply showing what a pattern is, they’ll present them via common problems people need to solve.

Over the course of the session, with the aid of the audience, they’ll build an application using Merb and Rubinius.
—

Don’t forget that one lucky charity session attendee will win a free 3-slice configuration for one year from Engine Yard. For a $50 tax deductible donation you can’t lose by attending. Sign up today!

Rails For All is happy to announce that Morph Labs has joined the list of sponsors for acts_as_conference, the two-day Ruby on Rails conference being held here in Orlando, Florida. Visit the acts_as_conference site for all of the conference details. There is a HOT lineup of speakers that you don’t want to miss and a great charity session featuring Ezra Zygmuntowicz (Merb) and Evan Phoenix (Rubinius).

About Morph Labs

Morph Labs Inc. is developing the next generation Ruby on Rails deployment, management & hosting system that reduces the developers burden and increases the professionalism of the application. This elastic managed environment leverages GRID computing resources and scales seamlessly to support Web 2.0 requirements.

Platinum Sponsors of acts_as_conference

• Sun Microsystems
• Engine Yard

InfoQ Ruby editor Robert Bazinet recently interviewed me about acts_as_conference, the two-day Ruby on Rails conference being held here in Orlando, Florida February 8th and 9th. There is a lot of news.

• Charity Session - EngineYard is giving away a FREE 3-slice configuration for one year to a lucky charity session attendee
• Railsmachine Party -Railsmachine will be hosting a party on Saturday, February 9th for conference attendees - these are always HOT
• More to come - if that isn’t incentive enough, we have one more surprise in store for later this week

Thank you again to Robert for all of his help, and to all of our sponsors including Sun Microsystems, EngineYard, LessAccounting and FiveRuns.