I had the pleasure to attend the Iowa Code Camp on Saturday, May 3, and I have to say I am very impressed with what they were able to accomplish. By partnering with great sponsors like the University of Iowa IT Services Department (who not only volunteered their offices but also provided coffee and drinks; talk about going above and beyond the call of duty!), ASI Computer Systems, Robert Half, Magenic, QCI, and a handful of software vendors including Microsoft, they hosted a really special one-day event for .NET developers in Eastern Iowa. If you attended the event, check out the Contributors list and thank them for their stellar support.

The Event
There were about 100 people in attendance, not including the couple dozen people who staffed, supported, and spoke at the event. There were five tracks with five sessions per track. They had a series of sessions that tied together thematically and built upon one another, in topic series on SharePoint, ASP.NET, XAML, and LINQ. They also planned what I thought was a spectacular idea — they held back a slot late in the afternoon and asked attendees to vote for a session they wanted to repeat in the final hour of the event. And to cap it off, a local firm (whose name I regrettably forget... if someone from the Code Camp will contact me and let me know I'll update this post and give credit where credit is due; update: Bryan Sampica sent me an update on the Iowa Code Camp dinner — he informed me that TekSystems and a small computer company in Davenport Iowa sponsored it; thanks to both!) hosted a dinner for up to 100 people.

Sounds like it was a great event, doesn't it? Trust me, it was!

Who's Who
From Microsoft, Jeff Brand and I traveled to participate and support the Code Camp. Jeff delivered two presentations: a walkthrough of Silverlight Streaming featuring a custom player Jeff calls MyTube as well as his patented introductory presentation on LINQ. I attended to "mingle" (I am management overhead, after all) and meet with community leaders from Eastern Iowa. I used to live in Cedar Rapids from 1993 to 1996, so it was a real joy to see how the .NET community had taken root in Eastern Iowa. As an added bonus I got to see some old friends, too.

I also had the pleasure of meeting several of the .NET developer community leaders from around Iowa, as well as many of the other folks involved in planning the Code Camp. Javier Lozano, from the Des Moines .NET User Group, was there, and was one of the Code Camp leaders. He also presented a talk on ASP.NET. I met Greg Sohl and Chris Sutton, who were facilitators of the code camp; they are both also involved in the Cedar Rapids developer community. I had lunch with them both and we had a really great discussion about the developer community. I also met Bryan Sampica, who helped with marketing the event and delivered a couple of talks on XAML and LINQ; and Greg Wilson who helped schedule speakers and spoke on SQL Server.

There were several other folks there that I met, and probably too many to list. Suffice it to say the community and thought leaders of Iowa banded together to deliver an outstanding event.

A Worthwhile Weekend
So, was it worth it to spend a weekend in Iowa? Yes! This was a really well done event, with a lot of professionalism and polish. Great speakers, great venue, great food, great coffee (a must for me in the morning), and a great format combined to make this almost feel like a one-day TechEd event. There was a little something for everyone, and they have bold plans to drive more Iowa Code Camps moving forward. If the success of this event is any indication, the developer community of Iowa can count on something really special every six or so months.

Note to Self
Learn from Larry Clarkin: next time remember to bring the camera and grab a few photos to include with the post.