I thought it would be fun to write a post on my time at KCDC 2016.  I was inspired by Lee Brandt’s blog post on Nebraska.Code(), which I also spoke at.

This was my first time going to KCDC and I was blown away.  Far and above the best conference I’ve ever been to, and the speaker lineup was amazing.  I had met a ton of great people in Nebraska.Code() the month before and was happy to see many of them here as well.

Venue

The venue was the Kansas City Convention Center.  It was absolutely beautiful and really nicely laid out.  During the lunch and keynotes, we had one of the large rooms upstairs, which was good since there were 1,600 people at the conference.  Not bad at all!

My talks

I got into town late Tuesday and finished prepping my workshop on Angular 2, TypeScript and ASP.NET Core.  I had about 80 people show up – 50 more than in Nebraska.  There were a few setup issues to iron out, but almost everyone had no trouble prepping their workstations before arrival.  The code examples were well received and, overall, I thought I did a good job.  Two of my demos failed, which has never happened before – both times because I forgot to save files that I had edited.  (Auto-saving feature is now permanently on.)  Now that the Angular 2 is close to RTM, I’m going to add routing and forms to the next time I give it at Music City Code.

My talk on RESTful APIs in ASP.NET Web API was the next morning.  I was shocked and delighted that I filled the room – about 300 chairs, standing room only.  The talk went really well and the questions from the audience were really good.  The talk is evolving still and I’m looking forward to improving it, since I think there’s plenty I can do to make it even better.  (If you saw it or any of my other talks and have any feedback, please drop me a line!)

Finally, my Getting Started with Angular 2 and TypeScript talk went really well.  I think the room held about 150 and all the seats were full, standing room only again.  The talk is a lightning version of my workshop, so naturally I can’t go into too much depth, but I saw a lot of nodding heads and most people seemed engaged.  The two short demos I gave went off without a hitch and helped me drive the point home that Angular 2 is awesome!

On a side note, I was happy to see that Cory House attended my talk since he’s a well known React proponent.  His talk on React vs Angular vs Ember was in the same room the next hour.  A lot of people came up to me after and told me it was really interesting to hear me talk about why I love Angular and then to have Cory turn around and talk about why he loves React.  Cory also gave me some good feedback on my talk.  He thought my slides could be prettier, and I agree – too wordy.  Looking to improve all of my slide decks for Music City and DevUp.

Events

The speaker dinner was awesome.  I got to meet some new folks and get to know some others better.  It was here that I found out about Prairie.Code() which is being put on by Adam Barney and Ken Versaw, same guys who put on Nebraska.Code().  (If you love a good tech conference and live in or around Iowa, I would highly recommend going.  Ken and Adam are great guys and Nebraska.Code() was a blast – this event promises to be just as awesome.)

I came as someone’s guest to the Pluralsight dinner, which took place before the attendee party.  The restaurant was awesome and I was happy again to get to know some folks better.  Thanks Pluralsight!

Finally, the attendee party was a blast.  The food was great and everyone loved the games that were everywhere.  Again, got to talk to some awesome folks – people who attended my talks, other speakers, and just people wanting to say hi.

Overall

What an amazing experience.  I can’t wait to go back next year.  Thanks to Jon Mills, Lee Brandt, and Boon Lee for allowing me to speak at their conference, the sponsors for helping make it happen, and for the attendees for coming and learning something new.