Saturday (29th January 2011) saw the ninth (official) incarnation of the Developer Developer Developer .NET community phenomenon started by Old Father Murphy way back in 2005 (when Liam Westley really did have hair). This one had 280 registrations within 6 minutes of registration opening and was sold out (360 registrations) in a total of 12 minutes (the waitlist had hundreds of people on it). A new record for the conference that continues to break its own records with each new event.

The day itself was excellent as always (there is no such thing as a bad DDD). The highlight of the day for me was John Price's excellent "Computer, earl grey tea, hot" session on home automation. I think presenters are always giving their best presentations when they are talking about something they are passionate about. Boy, was this ever true for John's presentation. John really knows his subject and packed it full of loads of information. If you get a chance to see this one I really recommend it.

My own presentation was on "Enforcing Code 'Beauty' Using StyleCop" (you can download the slides here). I was really pleased with this one - I delivered the content I wanted to and I had a great time with the audience. A real pleasure for me. One point worth making to anyone who attended who is getting started in giving presentations: did you notice how full the room was ? Did you also notice how both myself and the audience were having a great time ? This is an example of the dynamics of using humour - it is much easier to make a full room laugh than a partially full room. Put the same people with the same presenter and the same presentation in a bigger room and it wouldn't have been so much fun.

The other big player in DDD 9 was Twitter. As some of you know I don't have any particular opinions on Twitter (video: here, full slides and audio: here) but it played its part during the advertising, registration, build up, during the event and post event and it played its part admirably. It also played its part during the pre- and post- conference meals. The lowlight for me was sitting at a table with 10 people where only 3 of us didn't have our phones out tweeting away. The saddest part of it was that some of the 7 people on our table were tweeting to other people on our table. Guys! Just open your mouths and speak! If you don't start using them they're going to heal up.

But the takeaway thought is that it was yet another major success and huge congratulations go to Craig Murphy, Phil Winstanley, Dave Sussman and Zi Makki (Ian Cooper is taking a DDD break for a bit). If you enjoyed DDD 9 and want some more, or you missed out and need some DDD love or you want to know why this is such a major event try out DDD Scotland in Glasgow on 7th May 2011, DDD South West in Bristol on 11th June 2011 or DDD North East in September/October 2011.