This year’s FileMaker Devcon was amazing. We met a lot of developer’s in the community, got to meet and talk with a fair amount of FileMaker employees, and got an insight into where FileMaker’s broad customer range really stretches out to. The second or third day of the conference we met with a couple of guys from Nickelodeon, of all places, who worked within the animation department. These guys were using FileMaker to manage certain aspects of the animation studio, and they were eager to share and learn as much as they could about the advanced features of FileMaker. We got to hang out with Developer’s from Southern California (L.A. and San Diego) and even went to a dueling Piano club. If you haven’t been to one yet, I highly recommend checking it out.
Besides the great people we met, the sessions absolutely blew my mind away. I am comfortable working with FileMaker and php, but sitting in Jonathan Stark’s php security session I realized how much I still have to learn about using php in a working environment. The security tips he passed on were only an introduction, and yet I found that his level of skill in the subject outstripped many I have personally spoken and worked with. John Sindelar’s cross tab reporting session was fantastic. He talked about concepts of live reporting and data manipulation that took FileMaker to another level. In his session he also talked about a dragging and dropping example using a Airplane seating arrangement. The ideas he presented again, showed me how much I still have to learn as a developer. Another interesting session that I sat in on was plugin development. I have always been interested in this topic and really wanted to learn as much as I could on the subject. The introduction session was fantastic, and although I really wanted to attend the workshop in regards to plugin development, it conflicted with another session that I felt I must attend. On the whole, the sessions truly exceeded my expectations and I wish I was able to attend every single one.
One interesting session we sat in on was setup as a round table, with 4 attendees and one moderator. The topic, running and managing a successful consulting company. Attendees debated over broad and finer points of the trade, and although there were disagreements, the session still provided us with valuable information about running a successful consulting company. There were some differences in philosophy, especially in regards to billing per hour vs a flat rate. Overall however, the round table seemed to be a hit.
Although I cannot mention anything in regards to where FileMaker is headed, I believe that they are the road to success and that their ideas, their developers, and their focus has never been better. I believe that we can expect great things from FileMaker in the future.