I was in San Jose last Thursday, checking out hotel options. It was fairly easy :)

The official hotel of 360|Flex will be the Holiday Inn!

1740 North First St.
San Jose, CA 95112
Hotel Front Desk: 1-408-793-3300
Hotel Fax: 1-408-453-0259
Group Code 1: Three Sixty Flex
Group Code 2: FLE

If you were with us back in the day (that's March '07, yo), you'll know there's a lounge (open until 11-ish). Once the after hours parties at ebay's Town Hall wind down, we'll come back here to cap off the evening. This is where we'll be staying along with the speakers.

We have a room block with discounted pricing of $129 per night. The link above should automatically get you the $129 rate. If you book by phone, mention the group code of "FLE" or "Three Sixty Flex". It seems that Holiday Inn's reservation system does not allow numbers for group codes, hence the dual code setup for us.

If the HI doesn't work for you, there's a few other options;

There's a Double Tree nearby but they're currently sold out for the 18th.

Also try:
Fairfield Inn
Homestead Studio Suites
Motel 6

If you attended 360|Flex San Jose '07, you'll know our beer selection was incredible (thanks COWPU crew!). This year as we return home to San Jose and eBay's Town Hall, we're empowered to once again select whatever beer we feel like (they'll attempt to source whatever we request).



What would ya'll like to drink? Micro brews? Hefs? IPAs? Fruit flavored stuff (not my choice, but hey)? Leave us a comment and we'll make up a list, see what we can do. Obviously those beers with the most votes will win, since we can't have 30 different kegs around the place... Well I guess we could but we'd like you guys to remember to show up the next day, so it'll probably be 2-3 kegs, each night.

For you non-drinkers, don't worry. Tom (a fellow non-drinker) will make sure your crowd is properly represented! But feel free to request your favorite lemonade or soda pop flavah! (We don't really use the word soda pop, but we didn't want those who actually do use it to feel left out...like Ryan Stewart. Only he doesn't even add the "soda" prefix, he says straight up "pop"! LOL)

Would you like to sponsor?

Email us at:
info@360flex.com
Or download the general sponsor packet PDF at:
http://www.360flex.com/downloads/SponsorPacketSanJose.pdf

One thing that helps us put on these shows are the sponsors. Without their support, we just wouldn't be able to do 360|Flex. Some not only sponsor financially, but also send speakers and/or provide free giveaways.

Interested in becoming a sponsor? As little as $1K can get you in (and that includes a free ticket!). Then, if you really want to make an impression, the Diamond Level is still available. Our last Diamond netted 7 Flex developers which breaks down to roughly $2K per developer. You can beat that sort of rate for finding talent! Details for all levels can be found here.

Mad props to eBay, Simplified Logic, EffectiveUI and SavenTech for stepping up early and signing on before we even formally announced the show.

At Host Level, we have:



At Platinum, we have the following:



At Gold, we have the following:



Helping out with the Thumb Drives, we have:



Flex 101 Training:


Partners:

Calling all designers, information architects or interaction desginers! We're thinking it's time to change up the look of 360flex.com, so we need your help. The site isn't "broken" per se, since San Jose is the 5th show to use it. However, people say info is hard to find at times, so we'd like to address that.

The main thing we'd like to get away from is the "skinniness" of our layout and the super long sidebar. We want information to be easy (and intuitive) to find.

The 3 important parts of our site are:

1. The Details - Where, when and how much the show is.

2. The Speakers - Who's talking, when and what about

3. The Sponsors - Who's making the show possible and how can we find what they're offering

If you didn't know, the site is a blogger blog. Ideally, the design should be a blogger friendly template. We won't make that a requirement though, just a "nice to have".

Any thoughts? Any friends you can think of? We're not sure how much these things cost, but we're willing to give up a free ticket as payment. Not to mention accolades in a blog post and a "Designed by: " link to you or your business in the footer.

Interested parties should drop a line to info@360flex.com with the word "Redesign" somewhere in the subject. Thanks!

Do you have a cool set of APIs? Do you want some of the world's top
Flex programmers to work with your API to see how they hold up? Maybe
you'd like to see what cool apps a Flex/AIR developer can make with
your APIs?

If any of that rings true, then you should become an official sponsor
of the 360|Flex San Jose API Contest. With nearly 400 attendees and
thousands of visitors to the site, this is a great opportunity to let
the Adobe RIA community know that you not only have an API, but that
you support the tools of their choice.

The fee is $1500 plus you supply a game console as the prize for your
API category. Last time, we had Ribbit, eBay and Degrafa. This time
will surely be bigger and better. Don't be left out.

In addition to seeing how your APIs hold up, this would be a great
opportunity to help you find some much needed talent for your company.
See one killer entry, why not approach them with a job offer?

We also have other sponsorship opportunities as well. More info on
those can be found here.

For you Flex/AIR developers out there, fire up your Flex Builder and
get ready to try and win one of the great prizes. Also, don't forget
to register as we'll likely lock down speakers and hotel info soon.
After that, tickets will start to move fast.

Any questions or for further info, email info@360flex.com

Sorry about the confusion there. We briefly advertised the conference as starting on Sunday, the 17th, and not Monday, the 18th. Now, we're going back to our traditional Monday to Wednesday date schedule.

We were going to make Sunday an "official" part of the conference, but then we retracted. Why? Because the Free Pre-Conference training isn't meant to count as a full day of the conference. It's there for those that want some additional Flex 101 training before the "main event". However, we wanted to make sure attendees were not expecting a full day of sessions on Sunday.

In addition to the 101 Training, we're looking at lining up some sponsored vendor specific training. This will be of interest to those looking to get up to speed on a particular vendor's product. If there's a product you'd like to see some training on, drop their name in the comments. If you're a vendor who wants to sponsor one of the few slots to do vendor specific training, drop us an email at info@360flex.com.

One thing to remember, Sunday night is the traditional Welcome Reception. This is a chance to grab a bite to eat and share a few drinks with your fellow attendees. This way, everyone is buddy-buddy come Monday morning. Once again, not required attendance but we think it's fun. :)

Don't have your ticket yet? Whatcha waiting for? Register now.

We've long been harassed by our attendees for not giving them enough information about the session topics. Those days are now over. We hope you think our new eProgram is as cool as we think it is. We'll be adding other information (additional speakers, day/time of session, Birds of a Feather meetings, Party info, Reg Desk info, venue map, etc.) as we near the show date.

360|Flex San Jose 2008 eProgam Guide

Take a look and give us your first impression. Does this help you better choose which sessions to attend? If a speaker's description isn't clear enough, let us know and we'll have them expand on it.

If there's anything you'd like for us to add to the eProgram, just drop it in the comments. We're pretty excited to offer this moving forward, so we want it to be useful to you in whatever way you see fit.

Want to be a speaker? Go here for more info.

As you can see, we're improving the show yet again. This will be the best 360|Flex to date. You won't want to miss out so buy your tickets now!