1. Speakers refine and enhance their sessions based on feedback.
2. Frees up slots of sessions already seen so you can see other sessions during the conference.
3. Learn in advance of the conference, try things out, and ask the speaker more questions in person at the conference.

A couple of years ago I was able to see half the sessions before I even arrived in Arizona. I cannot tell you how much value that brought to me except to tell you it was a lot. This year I have seen several sessions and have a couple more to see before I arrive in Arizona. Even if you are not able to attend the conference it is an opportunity for you to learn from the presenters and provide them feedback so their sessions rock at Southwest Fox. I was particularly moved this morning because of an email sent to me by Mike Potjer of the Grand Rapids Area Fox User Group. Mike is a long time supporter of Southwest Fox and is attending this year. This past weekend he attended one of the many rehearsals Jim Nelson is doing for his two sessions on VFPX’s Thor. Mike wrote:

I hope this is already on your agenda, but I would really like to see a big plug for Thor during the Welcome/Keynote session of SW Fox.  I think Thor is the most universally useful productivity enhancement for VFP developers since IntelliSense.  I have created IntelliSense enhancements, and looked at creating builders, but adding functionality to Thor is much simpler than either of those, and really hardly requires any documentation.  And Thor blows away IntelliSense and the builder architecture in terms of making it easy to share what you’ve created.  ….  I really think Jim deserves accolades for this (not to mention all the PEMEditor development that laid the groundwork for Thor).  I told Jim that I honestly believe that if Thor had been available when VFP 9 was released, that it should have been included with the product.

Wow, talk about a session having an impact, and the conference has not even started. Hopefully you will get a chance to attend one of the remaining rehearsals held in the next two weeks before the conference gets rolling.

Steve’s sessions are Looking Back: Techniques I’m Glad We Used and Niche Marketing for VFP Developers, Revisited. Both are going to be great sessions, but the Niche Marketing session is particularly timely given the state of VFP development today. Of course, this just makes the problem of deciding which sessions to attend, since we can’t possibly see them all, all the harder.

The White Light Computing Scholarship winners for this year are two long-time Southwest Fox attendees: Joel Leach from Memorial Business Systems and Stacey Violett of Black Mountain Software.

The Tomorrow’s Solutions, LLC Scholarship winner for this year is Jon Love of Profile Systems Design Group, Inc. Jon noted that he’d been hoping to attend for several years and is excited to be coming to the conference this year.

In addition, we’re trying to get a better handle both on how many people to expect and the factors in people’s decision to attend or not. Please help us by taking a brief anonymous survey.

Check out the list of speakers and sessions at http://www.swfox.net/speakers.aspx. Full registration information and access to our registration application is at http://www.swfox.net/register.aspx.

The reason for the change was to get people to register sooner, which helps us in many different areas of planning. We put 20 seats in the first bucket and they all sold in the first few days after we opened registration. We were thrilled.

After that, we blew it. We put 60 seats into the second bucket, which failed to create any kind of urgency; as we write this, only 21 of those seats have sold. Even the July 1 deadline for getting a pre-conference session for free didn’t light a fire under many people. The result is that registrations are running considerably behind last year’s; we’re pretty sure it’s the pricing mechanism causing the slow registrations, not a lack of interest.

Since we really do need to know how many people are coming, we’re going to adjust the bucket sizes. But before we do, we want to give everyone a chance to get in on the current price of $645 (a discount of $125 off the regular price).

After Monday, July 25, we’re going to reduce the size of the second bucket to a total of 30 seats (or the number of people who’ve already received the Super Saver price by that date, if that’s more than 30), and add a new bucket called just “Saver,” with a price of $690, which is still $80 less than full price, for the other 30. However, anyone who registers on or before July 25 will get the Super Saver price, even if that means we have more than 60 Super Savers.

So, if you’ve been waiting for the Super Saver bucket to get close to empty before registering, that time is now.

Thanks for understanding our need to tweak this new approach. We look forward to seeing you in Gilbert in October.

We have a great line-up of half-day pre-conference sessions this year. The choices are:

• ASP.NET MVC3 JumpStart by Steve Bodnar
• Boosting Your Client Server Application using Stored Procedures by Menachem Bazian
• Fly in the Clouds-Preparing an Application for FoxInCloud by Tuvia Vinitsky
• FoxPro on Your SmartPhone: A Complete Guide to Getting Started by Steve Ellenoff

There are still plenty of SuperSaver registrations left, at $645 for the conference itself, so for that price, you can get the whole conference and one of the precons, if you register by July 1.

Registration information
Complete list of topics and speakers

The conference features 4 half-day pre-conference sessions and more than 25 main conference sessions in five tracks. Whether you’re still working only with VFP or extending VFP with other tools, you’ll have no trouble finding plenty of sessions to enhance your skills and widen your horizons.

Registration opens June 1.

In past years we opened registration on May 1st, so why the delay this year? The conference is later this year by a couple of weeks because of the Jewish holy days. Traditionally we only get a few registrations in the month of May so we decided to push back the open date until June 1st.

This week we will be updating the Web site to announce the sessions and the speakers who will be presenting at this year’s conference. We also will be posting an updated registration application and a short video on how to use it.

Stay tuned, Southwest Fox 2011 is going to be a great conference!

NOTE: If you have sent in your proposals and have not received an acknowledgment, it means we did not receive them. Please send an email to speakers@swfox.net (without attachments), so we can work it out.

The Ambassador selection committee consists of Southwest Fox organizers Rick Schummer, Tamar Granor, and Doug Hennig, former Ambassadors Emerson Santon Reed, Cesar Chalom, and Bernard Bout, and VFP community members Christof Wollenhaupt, Rick Bean, and Alex Feldstein.

We are looking for nominations from the VFP community for the 2011 recipient. To nominate someone you think is deserving to be selected, please email their name and a brief list of their contributions to the VFP community to ambassadorfund@swfox.net. Names must be submitted no later than April 15, 2011.

As in the past few years, we to offer a good selection of topics in core VFP development, extending VFP, using VFP with other technologies, and VFPX, as well as technology sessions to help VFP developers become better developers, not just more expert at VFP.

If you think you have something to say to the VFP community, please submit session proposals, even if you’ve never spoken at a conference before. Our community is strengthened when more people take an active role. Do be aware that speaking at a conference is a serious commitment. Even for experienced speakers, preparing a new session takes 40-80 hours. Doing it well at the conference calls for several rehearsals beforehand, too. So make sure you can commit the necessary time–the Call for Speakers lays out all the deadlines.

We’re looking forward to seeing what you all come up with. Reading through the proposals we receive each year is really exciting, and choosing among them is always a challenge.

There are several differences this year:

• First, we’re in a different week in October. That’s to avoid a conflict with the Jewish holy days.
• Second, we’re starting on Wednesday and finishing on Saturday, instead of the usual Thursday to Sunday. That’s to make sure you can get home in time for Halloween.
• Third, the post-con will be split over two days. Again, that’s to help you get home for Halloween. Plan to be there. This event will knock your socks off!

See you all in Arizona in October.

• Jim Nelson for his work on PEM Editor, Code References, and FoxChart Tools (add-ons)
• David Holden for SubFox
• Andrew Ross MacNeill for Code Analyst
• Emerson Santon Reed for Themed Controls
• Francis Faure for the VFP 9 SP2 Help file and VFP 9.0 Localization in French

At the keynote for Southwest Fox 2010, the awards were given to Jim Nelson and Francis Faure (to be delivered by Thierry Nivelet). You can watch a video of the keynote at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/swfoxtv.

Congratulations to both Jim and Francis and thanks for all your efforts in making VFPX the future of VFP.

Congratulations, Rick and Lisa; I can’t think of more deserving people and in Lisa’s case, long overdue. Hopefully we’ll have some video uploaded soon that shows them receiving their awards; check http://www.swfox.net/videos.aspx.

While Craig Boyd couldn’t do his planned sessions at this year’s Southwest Fox, we did some arm twisting and put on the full court press to convince him to do the keynote presentation.

We are waiting for Craig to finalize his topics, but we wanted to let you know so you are even more fired up about coming to Southwest Fox this year.

If you are registered for the conference please watch for more details in the normal emails we send out over the next few weeks before the conference.

We are also looking for an individual or a company to split the sponsorship of the keynote with White Light Computing. Contact Geek Gatherings if you are interested: info AT SWFox.NET.

We already have sent out three emails to people who are registered:

1) Early August
Added Eric Selje as speaker, hotel change reminder, international travel information, request for Show Us Your App, door prizes, books from Hentzenwerke for everyone, teaser video tease, and request to tell a friend about SWFox.

2) Mid-September
Your registration details and t-shirt size,  request for Show Us Your App, notification of the schedule page update, KOKOPELLI coming, last minute Polo shirts order, telling you session materials will be available before the conference, transportation, hotel, and information from the sponsors.

3) Late September
Keynote speaker announcement

What can you expect communication wise from the organizers before we arrive in Gilbert?

1) Early October
What is printed on your badge (so you can inform us of corrections), your status for the Who’s Coming List (in case you want to change it), what you have registered (friendly reminder), where you can get the Schedule, KOKOPELLI, what the food arrangements are finalized, registration details, and lots more…

2) A week before the conference starts:
Weather forecasts, download link and credentials to the conference materials, download link to the Conference Guide, ideas on enhancing your conference experience, potential side-effects of the conference, transportation, registration times, and lots more…

3) The Monday before the conference:
Pre-conference session details and reminders, download link and credentials to the conference materials (yes, again <g>), Show Us Your App schedule (provided people sign up to present – still need more sessions), more transportation details, and lots more…

After the conference we send out follow-up emails too to remind you about FTP credentials, getting us the evaluations, requesting photos you took, information from the vendors, and any updates from our speakers.

So it is critical you ensure we have your current email address for your registration. There is lots of information we want to share with our delegates.

Only 18 days until we gather in Glibert!