I try not to spam my blog with posts about every conference I’m involved with, but I’m genuinely excited about FITC Toronto this year. Beyond the usual collection of reasons I like this conference (great speakers, awesome people, good vibe, etc), there’s a list of reasons that are specific to this event:
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It’s the 10th anniversary of the conference, and I imagine Shawn (the organizer) has some cool things planned to celebrate it.
It’s being held in the Guvernment, which is a cool space & the first venue I ever spoke in, way back during Flash In The Can 2003 (before it became just “FITC”).
It will be the 20th FITC conference I’ve spoken at, including events in: Toronto (x9), Edmonton (x2), Ottawa, Montreal, Tokyo, Amsterdam (x3), Hollywood, SF, & Chicago. Scary!
I’m going to be super involved. I’m doing 4 separate talks, including my main talk (see #5), a retrospective panel (for us old coots), a Voodoo lounge talk on HTML5 & Flash, and one on one Q&A at the Get A Job event.
I’m switching out the talk I originally planned to do (“ADHD FTW, LOL!!”) for a new talk that I put together quite recently (“The Art of Being Inspired”). In some respects, it’s similar content, but presented in a way that better reflects my current creative optimism and showing some stuff I’ve been playing with recently. Don’t tell Shawn – he hates when I change sessions last minute!
I think it’s a very dynamic time in the industry, and I’m genuinely excited to see what people are working on and thinking about. There’s so much change and that’s bringing so much new opportunity – it’s just a great time to be exposed to other people’s thoughts and inspiration.
Anyway, I know this is pretty last minute, but if you’re in the area, and not going you might want to consider it. I’m not trying to sell tickets, but I think it’ll be a great event. I hope to see some of you there!
Toronto is one of the amazing cities I’ve ever been to & FITC is cool. I’ll try to get up there and empty some Canadiens while code-speaking with attendees. I haven’t seen many in the community for many years now & it’s time.
Have enjoyed seeing you speak at the previous FITC here in Toronto. Look forward to the same this year. Good luck, and thank you from the TO-based flash community. : )
(And thanks to my employer for taking care of the admission price – flash on!)
Hi Grant Skinner
This is time for rant from very loyal follower of you from many years.
You have been great inspiration for many flash community members. You’ve done great contribution to Flash community without doubt. Now I blame you. You jumping in HTML5 world supporting Apple void words and showing to many of your followers new direction. If Flash will die someday you are going to be responsible for this even more than SJ. Instead of putting your effort in rewriting Flash greatest invention DisplayList and porting it to HTML5 canvas (patent still partially belongs to Apple) you should make exactly the same thing in order to port Molehill 3D for 2D content. This is what we expecting from you. We all know, that Adobe implementation is not perfect in many places but a lot of Flash evangelist and enthusiasts make all this good things happened in the past. Pushed Adobe to improve things. Your steps now doing more damage into flash community that you can even possibly imagine or you are not aware of. I have removed your blog from my blogroll list and hope more flash developers especially flash evangelist will do the same thing. You are clearly working against Flash Platform. I don’t know is being famous is your priority over being loyal to platform thanks to you became famous is more important to you.
You already know how weak JS and Canvas implementation is compare to AS3, so it is not about being performance lover. My heat is bleeding.
And regarding to Toronto conference don’t forget when came from.
devu,
With all due respect you’re sounding kind of crazy in your post.
Grant is running a business, he offers the services his clients demand. He doesn’t belong to a single platform and really neither should you.
Personally, I’m a Flash developer but I’m still dabbling (rather heavily) in iPhone to keep my skills fresh. I’d hate to see Flash lose market share, but my job isn’t to help Adobe it’s to provide my employers with the solutions they need.
Devu,
I don’t understand the phrase “being loyal to platform”–I’d like to echo the prior comment–as I also do a lot of Flash development and don’t see that ending any time soon. Still, come what may for Flash, we aren’t developing for Adobe.
While I’m posting, thanks Grant for easeljs!