Another successful DNN conference and Chicago was well represented. Take a look:
DNN Training Day
While the event started as a Day of DNN and usually held on a Saturday, for some years now the day before was put aside as a training day. This year was no different, except...
Chicago's own Scott Wilkenson taught one of the classes, the DNN developer class. Scott taught the latest in developing modules using DNN8's new architecture including MVC's and SPAs. You'll need to check it out with Scott to figure out all the things that were involved in his class. Scott, drop a note in the comments section if you have some of this info available online somewhere.
The other two classes that day were also represented by Chicago DNN'ers, but as students and not teachers. Don Gingold was in the skin design class and Jim Nagy was in the Admin class.
DNNcon Saturday, April 2, 2016
The next day was the big DNNcon and all 3 of us were happy to be speakers.
Don Gingold from Sprocket websites gave a talk entitled "How we Sell DNN Websites." Sprocket Websites, a long-time DNN integrator and a founder of the Chicago Area DNN User Group over the past 8 years has been selling sites based on DNN. The up-front administrative interface, the rich set of modules, the flexibility of the layout all help them deliver a site clients love. How do they sell them on it? Many times they don't have to. Sometimes they play it up big. Occasionally they don't mention it at all. Don gave examples and how to decide what to pitch.
Here's a recap of his talk, at Sprocket's website.
Jim Nagy, also from Sprocket, presented "DNN Made Easy with EasyDNN," Sprocket as an integrator combines skins, modules and content together to produce great websites. They have been delivering blogs, news systems and even complete websites using the modules and themes from Easy DNN Solutions. In this review, Jim showed how to use the modules in clever ways, how to combine them to create great effects, and how to showcase a business with a rich skin design. A great set of tools are not without limitations, so he also guided prospective users around the pitfalls they've encountered.
The slides are available at Sprocket's website.
Scott Wilkinson from DotNetNuclear gave a talk with the Shakespearean title "To MVC, or not to MVC." After a few DNNHero training videos, private training sessions, and preparing for the DNNCon 2016 Developer training, Scott had some good experience to share with developers about the new DNN8 module development techniques. This session covered the challenges, gotchas, and lessons learned in developing a module using the new MVC approach. In addition to learning about MVC development, he compared MVC to the Webforms and SPA development techniques to show which applications are best suited by each style.
And the winner of the most round-about path to DNNcon has to be Chicago DNN's own Phil Wegrzyn, who drove out to Colorado and then Vegas for other reasons but then drove from Vegas to Baltimore for DNNcon!
Fun Drive Home
Don drove to the Con instead of flying so he could visit a client on the return trip, which became a story in itself. Don recounts how DNNcon saved his life in a blog post at Sprocket Websites.
Kudos!
We thank all the sponsors for DNNcon Baltimore, especially ChicagoDNN's own Sprocket Websites.
Most important of all is our thanks to Joe Craig who put this whole show together with lots of help from Don Bishop and Ryan Moore also from the area. Thanks guys!!!
Let's Do This Again!
With such a good conference comes exuberance about throwing another. ChicagoDNN threw a conference several years back and some of us think its high time we do another, maybe in the summer of 2017. We'll put our heads together here at Chicago DNN and keep you posted. First, we'll just bask in the warmth of a great Baltimore show.