Recap: Tulsa TechFest 2010

Tulsa Tech Fest started on Nov 11 with the Tulsa Community Leadership Town Hall meeting (click the link for my recap of that). Jay Smith caused a stir when he said all attendees were getting new Windows notebooks for free, and presented us with this:

Ha! Funny guy, that Jay.

Dave Walker and company from Tulsa Developers had their hands full with nearly 100 sessions and over 600 registrations. They have a nice registration system that looks like they built themselves--I'll try and get him to talk about it sometime. Part of a continuing trend at these events is adopting a charity, and attendees were encouraged to bring two cans or two bucks. The cans were donated to the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma, and the proceeds went to Family & Children's Services, and extra lunch went to the John 3:16 Mission.

The event was held in North Hall of Oklahoma State University (hint to groups holding events at universities-put the building name on all the materials!). We sponsors set up in the atrium, our table looked snazzy with the new runners. Our sunglasses were a hit again. We made sure to pack some extra so I could leave some C1 love to the user group-see Sean at upcoming Tulsa Developers meetings for a pair if you didn't score one at TTF.

The TechFest treated their speakers well-we had a "green room" where we could prep, and every speaker received a $20 Best Buy gift card.

ComponentOne gave away several prizes-a Studio for ASP.NET Ajax, and two Studio Enterprises. Because we were having storms, my flight was cancelled and I had to head to the airport before I could see the winner of the Studio for A2. I'll draw the Studio Enterprise winners when the boxes arrive back here in Pittsburgh, and notify the winners via email.

Studio Enterprise Winners

Congratulations to Jennifer Marriott and Bryanne Weaver, whose cards were pulled from our fishbowl. Eve will be contacting you shortly. I hope you enjoy the awesome stuff we have in our 2010 v3 release, and all the releases you're entitled to over the next year. For the record, Eve drew the winners, not me, and she cheered "girl power" with each winner.

Travel Notes

This was a zero Starbucks trip for me. That's quite a change from the week prior, where I hit 5 different Starbucks in two states in 24 hours.

Travelling with our Chief Creative Ninja's Zune, I watched Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland. I sense a theme. Just to make sure all was well, I drove past the Evans City Cemetery (where the original Night of the Living Dead was filmed) on my way home. We are safe, for now.

Delicious lunch from Albert G's Bar-B-Q. Brisket, cole slaw, tabouli, sweet tea and homemade Key Lime pie. YUM! Highly recommended for anyone heading to Tulsa.