I announced this about a week ago on the NJ Code Camp site, but I’ll put it up here to help get the word out.
The next New Jersey Code Camp will be held on Saturday, June 3rd at the Microsoft office in Iselin, NJ (the same place as the first one). We are currently looking for presenters, so please send your abstracts (download the form here) to june2006@njcodecamp.org. Once we have a number of abstracts we will publish them and open the registration.
With the great success of both the first New Jersey Code Camp, and the New York City Code Camp last Feb., we expect New Jersey Code Camp 2 to fill up fast. The registration will be announced on the NJ Code Camp site first, so you will want to subscribe to its RSS feed.
Code Camps are all about the developer community, and community driven content. To that end, the success of Code Camps are totally dependant on the local community. It is great to have the more known community folks presenting, as that helps to fill the seats, but there is something really special about first time Code Camp presenters. I’ve seen way too many good developers lose that little spark that they had within them when they first started programming. There was a time (way back when, when they started coding) that most developers actually loved to sit down and write code, and after a couple years in this business it becomes, well, a little disheartening, and the enthusiasm that was once felt after writing a masterpiece just isn’t there any more. There is a way to get that spark back; speak at a Code Camp! I can honestly tell you that I’ve had a few people come up to me, after recently speaking at a Code Camp, and tell me that it helped to re-ignite their love for writing code again. There’s something about sharing the things that you have learned with others that reminds you why you got into this business for the first place. If that isn’t enough to help you get over the jitters of presenting in front of a room of people, I’ll tempt you with one more thing. I have one more Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite with MSDN Premium Subscription left to give away, and it will go to the best Code Camp presenter (excluding any current MVPs, since they already have this, Microsoft employees, or anyone else that has already received a license via another MVP). Yes, folks, the opportunity to win a Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite with MSDN Premium Subscription. The similar MSDN product is valued at over $10,000 (you can't purchase this particluar license). You don’t have to be a first time presenter, or even a first time Code Camp presenter, just someone from the community. The Code Camp audience will decide the winner, by way of the evals.