SD West: It's a Dirty Job...

So here's the deal: The SD West 2007 Conference is coming up in a little over a week -- March 19-23, to be exact -- at the Santa Clara Convention Center in (you guessed it) Santa Clara, California. Conferences like SD West are supposed to be educational, informative, and more than a little bit entertaining. Maybe for attendees. For me, they're just work of a different hue.

To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, at the SD Best Practices India conferences, Andrew Stellman, who was speaking at the events, tried to get me to ride with him in a motorized rickshaw. When I declined, citing a long list of tasks, he said "All you're doing here in India is working." (Boss, please take note.) To the best of my knowledge, there aren't any motorized rickshaws around the Santa Clara Convention Center, but there is light rail. While probably safer, it doesn't look as nearly as much fun.

So what kind of work will I be doing at SD West? Well, on Tuesday, March 20 at 5:00 PM is the Opening Floor Party. This will be a tough one. According to the promo, I'll have to "Grab a drink, something to eat, mingle with fellow attendees and check out the coolest new technologies." Goes on for a couple of hours.

Later the same day at 7:30 PM, I have to rush over to the Google Party. In this case "Google invites you to an evening of wining and dining and other cerebral pursuits. Enjoy a memorable night out with your fellow SD West attendees from around the world, compliments of Google." Haven't these people ever heard of OSHA or unions?

As if Tuesday isn't bad enough, on Wednesday, March 21 at 7:30 PM it is SD Expo's 20th Anniversary Conference Party. Again, cocktails, food, and music.

And then again on Thursday, March 22, there's an event called "Innovation Games with Luke Hohmann" which promises more "food, drinks, and fun."

I know, its a dirty job, but someone has to do it. Ah, I should mention that tucked in between these tasks are sessions on everything from testing, Vista, and ALM, to C++, Ruby, Web 2.0, and more. There are also tutorials by the likes of Herb Sutter and Bjarne Stroupstrup and keynote presentations by Robert C. Martin, Brian Harvey, and others.

I hope to see you there. Watch for me. I'll be the person with the furrowed brow and laptop computer. Everyone else will be having fun.

Posted by Jon Erickson at 10:04 AM  Permalink