Tuesday, May 05, 2015

Southwest Fox and Southwest Xbase++ 2015 Speakers and Sessions Announced

Speakers and sessions for both conferences have been announced.

As Tamar blogged a few weeks ago, this year was the hardest it’s ever been to select speakers and topics. Not only were the submissions outstanding, economics have forced us to cut back on the number of speakers a little this year (although as Tamar notes, we’ll change that if registrations before July 1 allow us to do so).

Some sessions I’m personally looking forward to seeing are:

  • Toni’s An Introduction to SQL Server Reporting Services: I haven’t played with SSRS much so this sounds like a great introduction, and Toni is such a great speaker. I’m not sure I’ll be able to attend—it’s a morning pre-con session and we’re usually busy with registrations on Thursday morning—but I’ll try.
  • Christof’s GemBox: An Alternative to Microsoft Office Automation: another topic I’m very interested in. Christof is a speaker’s speaker: his sessions are always insightful and well-researched. Another pre-con so again I may not be able to make it; if not, I know his white paper will be top-notch.
  • Cathy’s Extending VFP Reports with XFRX and VFP Reports: A Potpourri of Cool Ideas: I’ve been using XFRX for more than 10 years and my company’s product, Stonefield Query, uses it extensively. However, Cathy’s session touches on some features I haven’t used, including its drawing API. Her potpourri session sounds like it’ll discuss how to do some really complex things that only Cathy can figure out how to do. I always learn a lot in Cathy’s sessions so these two should be gold.
  • Phil’s The New Rules of Marketing and Sales: last year, Phil hit it out of the park with his SWFox sessions. I’ve already implemented some of the tips he presented to great success (and by that I mean making money!), so I’m expecting this year’s session to be equally as great.

I’m also really interested in Tamar’s Can't This Application go any Faster? and Rick’s Your Developer Life Improved By Thor sessions, but hopefully they’ll present those sessions at the German DevCon in November so I can use those timeslots at SWFox to see other sessions.

Registration opens soon; send an email to info@geekgatherings.com if you want us to email you when it’s ready. See you in October!