2010 Year in review

12/28/2010 in Community View Comments

This past year has been a whirlwind of change for me professionally. I really got into blogging, Twitter and got more involved with the community. I met some fantastic, talented and genuine people that love what they do, and also got to know some old friends again. Attending some of the great conferences that were held this year really kept me in tune with my profession, and somewhat ignited my passion for an industry that I had lost over the last few years.

RIA Unleashed: I sadly wasn’t able to attend this in 2010, but closing out 2009 with this conference is what really got me excited about 2010. I had only been to Adobe MAX conferences in the past (2 Macromedia DevCons, MAX New Orleans, & MAX San Francisco) and had no clue that the smaller, more focused conferences were what I get the most out of. Props to Brian Rinaldi.

360Flex 2010 San Jose: Yet another great smaller conference, at least in comparison to a MAX, 360Flex was a great chance to meet new friends and learn about new processes and tools. I wasn’t able to make it to 360Flex DC, sadly, but am definitely planning on being at 360Flex Denver in 2011. Big ups to John Wilker and Tom Ortega.

Flash and the City: I love NYC, and mixing a Flash conference with NYC was a no brainer for me. I was able to take my wife along on this trip and turned it into a mini-vacation. The conference was a hit and I really enjoyed spending time meeting new friends and enjoying the city with my wife. Thanks Elad Elrom.

Adobe MAX LA: The most recent conference was MAX in LA, which was special to me in several ways. This was my first conference as a Litl employee, and also my first speaking gig (FATC Unconference). Litl won a MAX Award for Multiscreen, which rocked of course, and I got to hang out with some new friends and all around great people. Thanks Adobe, Motorola, Google, and of course Martha Stewart.

2010 also brought on some new challenges for me professionally, coming from a design centric past. I dug deeper into OOP, design patterns and just really how to program correctly. I read many books, mostly technical, and honed my skill as a developer. Clean Code, Growing Object-Oriented Software-Guided by Tests, Test Driven Development: By Example, and ActionScript 3.0 Design Patterns were extremely valuable and books that I plan to re-read again in 2011. I dug deeper into tools such as Git, Vim, Ant, TDD (FlexUnit 4), RobotLegs, and IDE’s such as FDT3.5/4 & IntelliJ IDEA 9/10. I also experimented with Java, Scala, C++, and Objective-C. I feel almost like I drank from the programming fire hose. Big shout outs to Bruno Fonzi & PowerFlasher, you guys rock.

Professionally I made some major changes, and leaving King Pharmaceuticals for Litl was the biggie. Litl is great, has unbelievably talented people and I really enjoy working there. King was a great place to work, and I honestly miss working there. It was an extremely hard decision to leave, but something I had to do to grow in my field. King was a great experience in a large corporation, mining and reporting on massive amounts of data, automation, and structure…but not necessarily something I ever want to do again . Sadly, just after I left, Pfizer announced a buy out of King, so my fingers are crossed for the future of my fellow employees in the Business Applications department.

Enough about 2010, 2011 is what I am looking forward too. I founded a new Adobe Flash UG (Blue Ridge FUG) and, along with Tim McLeod, am excited to kick off 2011 with some great meet ups. I also have a lot of plans up my sleeve which includes jump starting a new creative resource, family relocation, and a few new additions to my tool belt. I plan on attending several conferences, and have even applied to speak at a few…so we’ll see how that pans out. I am excited about new conferences such as GeekyByNature, which goes hand in hand with some changes I want to make professionally. Here’s to the new year, there will be great things to come.

-connatser

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