Last year, we covered MIX contents and had a private showing of the new Star Trek moving. This year, we're continuing to stir the tech pot - focusing on mobile development, web technologies, and general methodologies on our yearly trek. That's right - there's another Stir Trek this year, and that's a short spiel on what's going to be covered.

For $25, you get a great amount of tech sessions with some of the industry's best presenters, lunch, vendor sessions from some of the region's great developer supporters, and a seat at our private showing of Iron Man 2 on its opening day - Friday, May 7th.

So what are you waiting for? Check out the site and register today!

Labels: Stir Trek

There were quite a few female attendees at Stir Trek yesterday - it was quite impressive! We got to talk with the ladies of the Centerburg Trojan Robotics Club about women in tech, and here are some of the things I had to say.

Don't let the bad rumors or the guys intimidate you.

Sometimes, you will run into guys who make it their goal to intimidate you. Do not give into them. They are few and far between in the industry, but they give the field a bad rep for women in general. I've been working in various aspects of technology - tech support, IT, and software development - and most of the guys that I've worked with wish that we had more women in our workforce. As women, we can offer a different perspective on problems and how to solve them. You should have a tough backbone in case you do run into one of those guys who tries to discourage you. But something you'll find is that many guys will be welcoming and want to show you the ropes - if you run into those guys, learn to trust them and learn from them. Oh, and be warned... we're a bunch of geeks in the field, so bad puns and bad humor are abound.

Do what you enjoy doing.

If you like working with robots or writing code or whatever it is that you like doing, stick with it and look into possible career opportunities related to it. Work doesn't have to be a boring thing that you do for 40 hours a week just to put a roof over your head. Why waste life working a boring job when you can do what you like and have fun at the same time?

Get involved!

I don't think I can stress this enough. These ladies are freshmen in high school - which means plenty of time for them to get involved in the community and get their names out there. For example, seeing that they're currently geeking out with robotics, they may want to look into the Columbus Robotics Society and getting involved with them (attending meetings/events, join their mailing list, etc.). Another way to get involved is to join Twitter and look for others with similar interests that you can talk with, bounce ideas with, and network with.

The more you get involved with the community, the more people you interact with, the more recommendations you can get... which can lead to internship opportunities at both the high school and college levels and job opportunities in the future. You will also find that in networking with others, you will learn more from the people you meet and their experiences in the industry. You are never too young to get involved in the community, but if you get involved early, that gives you more time to get your name out there, which also means more time for you to meet people and take advantage of more opportunities in the industry.

Labels: Stir Trek, WiT

Yesterday, I took the day off of work to attend Stir Trek. I'd been hearing about it for quite awhile, as Jeff has been quite excited about it and talked about it quite often throughout its planning stages. After two months of planning, the event finally happened!

I arrived in Columbus Thursday night, just in time to catch the tail end of their geek dinner. It was good to finally meet Rachel Appel, and I also enjoyed seeing all of my friends who were there. I apparently had good timing, as some of the guys who were there wanted to play Zombie Fluxx (in the food court?!?) and I happened to have my set on me. It was good to see the gang before the event, as the day of the event would be quite busy!

Friday morning, I was up bright and early to help transport supplies to the theater. Once we had our caravan of vehicles unloaded, I joined the registration team and helped them with setup.





Carey Payette and Jody A. Morgan took over leading the registration team. These two ran a great operation on getting people their bags, their tickets, their nametags, their shirts, and everything else needed for registration. I worked with Lilyn Chang and Brian Moore on getting tickets and bags to those waiting to register.



After people registered, they were sent down the hall, where they could get something to eat for breakfast. Brian Sherwin did an excellent job of setting up the breakfast, including the artistic arrangement of the fruit.



There were two tracks for this event:





There were many topics covered between the 2 tracks. Special thanks to the speakers who came out and shared their knowledge on the topics covered, in no particular order:

• Tim Heuer - What's New in Silverlight 3 and .NET RIA Services


• Steve Smith - ASP.NET 4.0


• Rachel Appel - Choosing Between MVC and ASP.NET Web Forms


• Matt Casto - Building Silverlight Controls


• Phil Japikse - Overview of jQuery


• Michael Eaton - What's New in WPF 4


• Jeff Blankenburg - IE8, SuperPreview, and the Web Platform Installer


• Tim Hibner - SketchFlow


• Brian Prince - Cloud Computing with Azure

Thanks to our sponsors for helping make it happen:






And thanks to the attendees who came out for this amazing event. I saw many people from Cleveland, and I'm glad they came out. There were over 300 attendees at the event that came from all over - Washington, Missouri, Kentucky, and Michigan, to name a few places.

Thanks to the volunteers who helped the organizers with the event. And most of all, thanks to the organizers - Jeff Blankenburg, Matt Casto, Tim Hibner, and Carey Payette - for bringing this event to Columbus (and not Detroit for once!).

I took a lot more pictures than the ones included in this post. You can see my pictures in my Stir Trek set on Flickr.

Looking forward to next year's event - something along the lines of Iron Man 2... hmm....

Labels: Stir Trek

Stir Trek is only 3 weeks away -- are you registered yet?

They've had some exciting news, and I wanted to post that here, just to remind what you may be missing if you haven't signed up yet.

Event Name
They've changed the name! They now have a subtitle... so now it's "Stir Trek: A ReMix Event" and is listed on the offical Mix website - http://visitmix.com/worldwide/.

Referral Program
They also announced their referral program. When you register, tell them that sadukie sent ya! For each registration that lists your name as a referral, you will receive 2 extra prize drawing entries! So register now and get your friends and co-workers to join you!

Here are some of the prizes they are giving away:
Xboxes
Digital DVD Video Camera
Expression Studio 2 licenses
Free certification exam vouchers
over 200 books
Barnes & Noble gift certificates
More to come...

Geek Dinner
Stir Trek is hosting a Geek Dinner at the Polaris Fashion Place food court on Thursday, May 7th at 6:30 pm. Tim Heuer and other Stir Trek speakers will be there in their full geek glory! Come chat about technology over a Chik Fil A platter. Check out nerddinner.com for more details.

Event: Stir Trek

Date: Friday, May 08, 2009 from 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM (ET)

Location: Marcus Crosswoods Theater, 200 Hutchinson Ave., Columbus, OH

For more information click here: Stir Trek

Hope to see you there!

Labels: Stir Trek