Flashbelt Days 2 & 3: The Take Away
Flashbelt has come and gone, and I’m really glad to have been a part of it. Even being at Flashbelt this year was something of a dream come true for me.
Unfortunately at the end of the second day of Flashbelt, I felt a bit…let down. I think I felt like I didn’t have much to bring with me from the sessions I had attended. I felt like maybe they could have gone deeper. In some cases, I felt like they were covering things I’ve had the ability to learn myself. Now, I don’t think that my experience is indicative of Flashbelt as a whole. But I honestly didn’t feel like I had much to write about after that day, so I waited to see what would happen.
Moreover, I realized that I had been missing out on something else Flashbelt offers: the ability to meet other people. Up through the second day I hadn’t really talked to too many people at the conference, and realized that I was probably missing out on meeting some cool people and hearing about cool projects.
I’m happy to report that day 3 was better for me on both fronts. I went to a couple of sessions that had good connections to the type of work we do at The Nerdery. Veronique Brossier’s session discussed some of the ins and outs of developing Flash-based multiplayer games. We’ve worked on such games at The Nerdery, and she provided some good insights that we’ll be able to use as we work on such games in the future. Flash is a capable multiplayer game platform, it just requires a special kind of care.
Ralph Hauwert presented what on the surface might have seemed like a session that only appeals to the most hardcore of graphics programming nerds. But his session was showing very impressive 3D performance within Flash player, using the programming tools that Flash 10 provides. 3D has relevance to almost any application that can be developed for Flash, so his stuff is something we’ll be keeping an eye on.
The sessions were good, but I think the best thing about day 3 was the interactions with other attendees. I was asked to help man the Sierra Bravo/Nerdery Interactive Labs info table, and that provided me with the opportunity to talk with some people and give out some schwag. The coolest time, though, was over lunch. A group of people were talking with Veronique Brossier after her session. We all started walking out of the hall together, as it was lunch time. We all ended up going to lunch together, about eight attendees and Veronique, too. It was an honor to be able to have lunch with a Flashbelt presenter, but it was also fun and interesting to talk to the other people.
In the end I didn’t come away from Flashbelt with any new code to use in my projects. What I did come away with, however, is a bunch of new ideas to think about. Flashbelt is full of people who are testing boundaries, seeing what they can create with digital tools, figuring out new ways of interacting with all of the digital data that’s now out there in the world. It’s this testing, tinkering, and playing that can yield some pretty amazing results; often times things totally different than what was expected.
Moreover, I came way from Flashbelt with some new contacts; maybe even new friends. These are people who are doing similar things as myself and my company. Who knows what sort of partnerships might be created and solutions created?
So what did I come away from Flashbelt with? An overall enjoyable conference experience, but perhaps more importantly, possibilities for very cool stuff in the future. Thanks, Flashbelt! And now, back to The Nerdery.
