Tom and I were planning to do a cool Steve Jobs "one more thing" during the keynote in Atlanta, but decided to bring it up now instead. Should (I really, really, really hope) 360|Flex Atlanta turn a profit, we'll be splitting that profit 80-10-10.

Que?

We talk a lot about giving back, and decided to (literally) put our money where our mouth is. We've already mentioned, the free full day training the Sunday before Atlanta, but why not actually 'give' something back. Here's how we're going to break it down.

80% will go to 360Conferences, Inc. It's not a non-profit organization after all, and we'd like to eventually pay ourselves... something.

10% will go to a Flex community project. We're not sure which, maybe The Flex Show to buy new gear, maybe a laptop for degrafa, who knows? We'd just like to support community efforts in the technology space the conference is based upon, i.e. Flex. We're open to suggestions by the way, if you have some ideas on how to do this.

The last 10% will go to a more far reaching charity organization. Some one working to make the world better somehow; maybe the EFF (love those guys!), maybe the Galapagos Conservancy (love me the boobies). Again, who knows, and we're open to suggestions.

Basically, we decided that while 360|Flex is helping change the face of conferences, we can also help change the world and the Flex community, even if just a little bit. We think that's pretty cool, hence our wanting to share now. Which ever groups we choose, will be announced during our wrap up keynote, but we just couldn't sit on the idea until February.

We hope this raises a bar in the business world. I know we're not the first to donate some profits to charity, but it's not exactly commonplace either. We do think we are the first to do it in the conference space.

Do you want to go to a great community driven conference and support great causes at the same time? You know what to do then. See you in Atlanta!