I attended the Tampa Code Camp this past weekend. It was located at the Kforce Building in Tampa, a very nice facility, good parking, and only a couple blocks from downtown Ybor City (lots of stuff to do) - this is also where the Tampa SQLSaturday will be held in January 2009. Attendance looked to be around 200-220, which seemed to be down somewhat from previous years but still easily a success.

I did a presentation on how statistics affect performance in SQL. The 'room' I was assigned was one half of the cafeteria, another presenter had the other half. Looking at it I was expecting to have everyone struggle to hear/understand, but the layout brought the attendees in closer than usual and the noise turned out to not be a factor. If anything, having attendees within normal conversational distance made it less formal and more fun.

Only a single SQL track (not unusual) but I think we (sql speakers) probably need to have a better focus on what SQL content we do at these events. Just as at any of these events the skill levels and interests vary widely, but I think they fall into two main groups; those that don't have a DBA and so need some coaching on routine DBA tasks (not uncommon to find out they do zero index maintenance), and those that want to understand performance/security together. I think SQL injection should just always be on the agenda!

As always I had some good conversations. Some related to PASS that I'll post separately, I talked with Jonathan Kehayias about career plans & consulting, Bayer White  (new blog URL) has taken over the Jacksonville .Net Users Group and the related Code Camp so we talked about running user groups and events, talked with Pam Shaw of the Tampa SQL Group about how she was going to organize the facility for SQLSaturday, talked with Joe Healy about Bizspark, and more!

Biggest complaints: materials for attendees weren't pre-stuffed in the event bags, and the lunch line for pizza wasn't well organized.

Finished up the day with a late lunch at The Green Iguana - if you're in Tampa you should try their Baja Burger!

Although attendance was down this year (around 280 attendees) due to it being held Easter weekend, I thought this was easily the best of the Orlando Code Camps so far. More volunteers, better logistics, and definitely a great site (same as we used for SQLSaturday#1 in Orlando) all combined to make it a first class event. Kudos to ONETUG leader Shawn Weisfeld, Jessica Sterner, Fabio Honigmann, and the rest of the volunteers for doing great work and providing a terrific service to the community.

Saw a lot of old friends and made some new ones, too numerous to list but here are a few; Roy Lawson (Lakeland .Net Users Group), Kathy Malone (great talk about organizing and sustaining community events), John Pharris from Comsys, Jack Corbett, Ryan Dorrell from Agilethought in Tampa, Jim Wooley (Linqman and part of the Atlanta .Net Group), Michael Webb from Cybreze (DNN master), Diego Samuilov, Wes Dumey, former student Jeff Mullen, upcoming student Cassandry Nealy.

As always, I pay a lot of attention to logistics, looking for ideas that will help make the SQLSaturday format more successful (and which we share back with ONETUG), so here are the ones from this time:

• The day started a bit weird because the security guard had instructions that no extension cords could be used. The facility has no wall or floor outlets in the sponsor area. Finally had to get the facility manager to come to the site who insisted on the rule, after more discussion the head of maintenance arrived and clarified what would work (a mininum number of cords, all tied off and taped down, and surge protectors used. The facility also decreed that we could not use blue painters tape to affix stuff to the wall. After some heated discussion they agreed that we could use the gummy tack strips. As it's the third time that we've used the facility for a community related event you would think all of this would have materialized sooner; the impression we get is the facility manager sees her job as protecting the facility at all costs, even if that means no one uses it! Not sure what the lesson is, but the ideal is to have the site sponsor actively and happily involved whatever it takes, not get into an adversarial relationship...if you can help it!
• Shawn came up with a great idea for managing books. Wrox, Apress, and MS Press have all been great community supports, there were easily over a 100 books to give away. At past events they have been raffled off at the end of the day, turning it into a 45 minute marathon that no one enjoys. Shawn gave each speaker 3 book tickets with instructions to give them away during their session using whatever criteria they wanted; best question, first arrival, etc. Winners took their ticket to the 'prize desk' to redeem their book. The tickets were for a specific book, I think it would have been slightly better if they could just choose from what was available. Totally a win though; good for attendees, and good for speakers too (though because the system was new, many speakers forgot to give them out until the end of the session)
• There were a lot of other raffle items, I think we're all missing out by not advertising them on the event site in advance. Lots of software in addition to the books, and several more expensive prizes including the One Laptop Per Child laptop that we (End to End Training) provided.
• There weren't enough sponsors on site. This was mostly attributed to some delays the event team ran into during planning, but it was definitely a missed opportunity, both for sponsors and for funding the event.
• One nice thing they did was provide each sponsor (onsite or virtual) a box for their raffle tickets. All the vendors that weren't physically present were all set up on one table, attendees could just walk by and drop in their tickets. Very nice.
• I'd like to see first time attendees identified - maybe a different color badge. I saw more than a few that looked a bit lost/overwhelmed/nervous, wouldn't be a bad idea to pair them up with someone.
• Shirts for the event speakers and volunteers were green. Good enough shirts, they just didn't stand out from the crowd very well.
• I'd also like to see the speakers more visible. Quite a few seemed to spend hours in the speaker ready room working on their presentations. I think they are missing out on a great chance to interact more, and presentations written an hour before delivery often aren't the greatest. Maybe a speaker table in the main lobby where every speaker has to do 30 minutes, just answer questions, etc, would be a nice way to give them more visibility without making it a hardship.
• Even with the books gone the raffle at the end of the day went slowly. Many of the software sponsors were giving away 5 or 10 licenses, takes time and strangely enough, just trying to pronounce the names of the winner often slows people down. Might be useful to give everyone an attendee id so that someone can yell #177 instead of trying to say a very complicated name. Also need a better system to track winners; easy if they can collect right then, but many of the prizes require that the email address be sent to the vendor so the key can be sent back. In particular we did a bad job of this at SQLSaturday Orlando.
• The event finished up a little earlier than expected, about 5;15, and the after party was due to start at 6:30 with the food not available until 7. As you might expect this really lowered attendance, when I left about 7:15 there were perhaps 20 attendees there, primarily volunteers and speakers. The after event needs to be immediately after or it's not going to succeed as while as it might.

Great event, and some of the conversations helped me better form a couple ideas that I've been working on, will try to blog in more detail later this week.

I've been emailing back and forth with IndyTechfest organizer John Magnabosco over the past year as we've traded notes about running community events, so when he invited me to attend as a speaker it seemed like the perfect opportunity to go see first hand how they do things. I've never been to Indianapolis either, so it should be an interesting trip.

This topic came up during the speaker reception at the South Florida Code Camp and while I've posted here and there, it's probably worth writing down some thoughts about what events like Code Camp and SQLSaturday can do to make being a sponsor more attractive.

• Treat me like a customer that is just as important as your attendees, your speakers, or your site host!
• Give me plenty of advance notice. I need to budget for it and fit it into my schedule. Ideally talk to me 4-6 months prior to the event, at a minimum 3 months prior.
• Give me some basic options, and be prepared to bargain some. Impress me by putting together a nice sponsor package that shows you have a plan and that you take sponsors seriously. I know you need hard dollars, not software valued at x dollars, but sometimes there is room to compromise - be open to the conversation. If it's a new event or the first time my company will be a sponsor, be prepared to spend some time with me at lunch or dinner. That's right, you've got to convince me that it's a good venue for me, that the cost vs return is likely to work out, and most importantly, convince me that you can make the event happen.
• Accept checks and credit cards. It's your event, I don't have time to buy soda, cookies, etc in lieu of you collecting cash.
• Guarantee that if the event cancels, I get a full refund
• Give me a deadline and address for sending you collateral to be placed in event bags. It's critical that the items be placed in the bags, just laying out on the table greatly reduces the number of people that will take the time to look at it. By placing in the bag that will look through it while waiting on a session to start.
• On the day of the event have someone at registration to specifically help sponsors. Tables should be set up and labeled in advance, and just having someone help carry all the stuff to the table is a great help. Have a hand truck or other cart available for sponsors to use.
• Set up sponsor tables in a way that insures traffic flow. One method is to locate them immediately following registration, the other is to locate them immediately after the food. Either way, set things up so that people naturally flow directly by the sponsor tables. Also, it's fair that the biggest (paying the most) sponsors get the best locations.
• Give attendees a name tag! Sponsors need to talk to attendees and making the name exchange easier makes it easier to start the conversation. It's also a good idea from just a pure networking perspective.
• Make it easy for attendees to share their contact information with us. One way is to pre-print a set of 10 or so 'business cards' for each attendee and include in the bag, another is to barcode the info on their badge using PDF417 or similar format. The latter does require sponsors to acquire a more expensive barcode reader but it is worth while. The sad alternative is forcing attendees to write down their contact info over and over again, and it's common to lose 20% of those due to illegibility, plus it just annoys the attendee.
• Make my logo very visible on your web site, proportional to my investment of course
• Provide attendees with some type of printed event guide/schedule that also features sponsor logos
• Ask if I'll be raffling or giving away an item that will probably be of interest to most attendees, then highlight that in pre-event email, then again at the key note - remember, these freebies help drive people to your event.
• Provide access to internet and electricity, or let me know it will not be available.
• Consider doing an event polo or tshirt for attendees and put sponsor logos on it as well. Polo's are the preferred choice, but realistically tshirts are the most cost effective for large crowds.
• Sponsors attend events to either build their contact lists or to directly demo their products/services, so look for ways to help them achieve their goal. For example, offering a sponsor track or special lunch time sponsor sessions.
• Try to provide someone to help with break down and clean up near the end of the day

I know that sounds like a lot. What do you get in return?

• Cash. Most free events have very real hidden costs, ranging from lunch and tshirts to signage and coffee cups. If you can do without cash, you don't need sponsors, right? (Note: Most attendees actually enjoy access to sponsors and find it adds value to the event)
• I'll be spreading the word about your event to everyone I know, to increase the attendance and my ROI, and to highlight involvement in the community - a good thing for any business to do
• If you do a good job managing the event and your relationship with me, I'll be there as a reference and will most likely be an easy sell the next year

Put as much effort into your sponsors as you do the attendees, speakers, volunteers, and site host and things will go well.