FlashForward SD - Day 3: More Great Sessions and Great People

So what did you miss at FlashForward SF 2003 on Day 3?



I skipped Thursday night's party at the end of Day 2, sponsored by Media Temple, but anybody sponsoring an open bar deserves a plug in my book. Having caught up on sleep and not being hung over, Day 3 was a workhorse day for me. I attended several informative sessions, including Mike Chambers talking about Flash Remoting, Thomas Wagner covering Flash game development, and Brian Ghidinelli addressing Rich Internet Application development processes. Other popular sessions included Phillip Torrone discussing content creation for mobile device, Robert Penner teaching Scripted Animation techniques, and Dave Yang covering OOP techniques in ActionScript.


The highlight for me, however, was Erik Natzke's closing session entitled "Interaction Less Ordinary." Erik showed some breathtaking animation sequences, most notably a hyper-realistic page-turning animation that was so perfect in its elegance and natural in appearance that it would be easy to overlook if encountered on a web site. Erik does some amazing stuff in Flash without it appearing too Flashy. Moreover, he creates some very useful interfaces, such as the one that distributes images in a circle, making it much easier to shuffle through them.


The conference closed with an unparalleled swag distribution hour. Nearly half the people in the audience walked away with door prizes ranging from $50 to $10,000, including free Flash Comm Server hosting, free conference passes, a DevNet subscription, a Pocket PC, and, of course, several stacks of free O'Reilly books.


A rockin' party at Method (on 5th and Mission) closed out the week with appropriate libation and conversation. I look forward to seeing everyone July 9-11 for FlashForward 2003 in New York.

See Day 1 and Day 2 commentary, as well.

What is the best conference swag you ever got?