If you’ll be attending Tech Ed 2008 (Developers, USA), you may want to come to some Birds of a Feather sessions, which allow you to join a discussion with peers on a topic of interest. How are the topics chosen? Well, funny you should ask that – you get to help choose them by voting for the sessions that are of greatest interest to you. The thing that differentiates BOF sessions from the usual technical presentations is that the organizer is there to moderate the discussion, not to lecture and present. There are typically no projectors or powerpoint decks involved in a BOF session, just a bunch of chairs and perhaps (if you’re lucky) some whiteboards. It’s a great way to learn more about a topic from more than one person’s experience, and to have the opportunity to ask questions (and share answers) of your own.

I’m involved in a couple of sessions that I hope you’ll vote for:

Online Advertising for Developers

In this session, we’ll discuss various online advertising models and technologies, what we as developers should know about them, and how to optimize our customers’ and our own web properties to best take advantage of available sponsorship opportunities. The moderator brings ten years of online advertising experience, and welcomes questions and suggestions from all who attend.

Going Solo (co-moderating with Julie Lerman)

Have you ever thought of going independent? This session aims to bring together independent developers with those who have toyed with the idea to share advice, lessons learned and more.

So, please go vote for your favorites now:

https://www.msteched.com/dev/voting.aspx