CocoaConf Boston 2014 Recap

After getting a solid recommendation from Curtis, who attended the Washington DC variant, this weekend I headed north to CocoaConf Boston. It was my first CocoaConf and so I went into the weekend with a lot of blurred expectations.

Spoilers: I say first with intention. TLDR; I had a really great time. The talks and speaker quality were really high and with luck I’ll be able to attend again during a future “tour”.

One of my expectations was size. I thought the attendee count was going to be a bit larger. It felt like ~130 but I’m not sure what the official number was. Not that a small count is bad for me but I’m used to educational events hosting more. I suspect part of this is that CocoaConf is hosting lots more venues now (three arguably “east coast cities” during this fall tour alone). This may make some events smaller but overall a win for the community so as to have more access for those who can’t travel far.

One thing that continues to make me proud is the people of our community. The attendees, the speakers and the event staff of CocoaConf are all incredibly friendly, approachable and inspiring. Meeting new people and catching up with old friends is a big reason why I like attending conferences and CocoaConf does a great job at supplying the “campfire” atmosphere to make that happen.

![Daniel Jalkut’s “Quit Your Job” keynote][3]

As for my favorite talks I’ll mention a few:

[Daniel Jalkut’s][4] “Quit Your Job” keynote and [Rob Rhyne’s][5] “Make Them Care” session were both very inspirational. I leave Boston really hungry to jump into some side projects of mine and get back into the product game outside of my client stuff at work.

For technical wisdom I have to give it up for the full day “Swift Kickstart” workshop [Daniel Steinberg][6] ran as well as the Swift and Objective-C: Best Friends Forever session by [Jonathan Blocksom][7]. CocoaConf Boston is now cemented as the place and time where I really started to appreciate what Apple is trying to accomplish with Swift. This isn’t to say we aren’t in for a bumpy ride but at least now I have a good frame of mind as to the “why” behind it all.

Finally, it was great to meet the people that run CocoaConf. Rather than some large corporation, CocoaConf is actually a family affair. Dave Kline and his family run most of the operation and they seemed very dedicated to making sure everyone had a good time. For all their hard work I say thank you and hope to see you all again soon.

[3]: http://mikezornek.com/media/images/quit-your-job.png “Daniel Jalkut’s “Quit Your Job” keynote” [4]: https://twitter.com/danielpunkass [5]: https://twitter.com/capttaco [6]: https://twitter.com/dimsumthinking [7]: https://twitter.com/jblocksom