The Day of DotNetNuke® began under a different name in 2008. That year, the popular Microsoft TechEd conference was being held at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. It was a two week event, focusing on content for Microsoft developers. There was an open weekend between the two weeks where all of the conference rooms were paid for, and gathering dust through the entire weekend.
A Microsoft Evangelist, Joe Healy, realized this, and then had an idea, "Why not use the open conference rooms for the local developer community to take advantage of them?" If you know Joe, you know that he immediately followed up on this idea and quickly made the rooms available and contacted the community leaders of all of the local Microsoft user groups. Among those contacted was Brian Scarbeau, the founder of the Orlando DotNetNuke® Users Group (or ODUG).
The ODUG was just entering its summer hiatus, following its first year as a user group. He contacted Will Strohl and Mike Webb for help in organizing the event. Will Strohl worked mostly in a supporting manner, while Mike Webb took the reigns and began organizing the event. During the organization of the event, the DotNetNuke Corporation became involved. One thing led to another, and the DotNetNuke Corporation soon was organizing the event, with the help of Mike. Soon, the event was officially named OpenForce Connect - Orlando, following on the popularity of the annual DotNetNuke® conferences.
At last, the first community based DNN -only event was born, and it was called OpenForce Connect - Orlando. Thanks to the contributions of sponsors in the DNN ecosystem world-wide, the DotNetNuke Corporation founders were flown in to attend the event. It was a single-day, single-track event, featuring only local speakers. The speakers were, Brian Scarbeau, Mike Webb, Tracy Wittenkeller, Will Strohl, Raul Rodilla, and Darrell Hardy. Following the local speakers, the DotNetNuke Corporation founders all got on stage to hold an open forum to speak about all things DotNetNuke®. It goes without saying that it was a fantastic event, followed by a great after party held by the DotNetNuke Corporation for the speakers and ODUG members.
Soon thereafter, Brian Scarbeau stepped down from leading the ODUG, appointing Will Strohl as the new user group leader. Immediately following, Will began to field questions from people all over, asking if there would be an OpenForce Connect event again in 2009. Without any realy knowledge over what was going to happen, Will first began to send e-mails to the DotNetNuke Corporation to see if they had any interest or intentions to follow-up with another community event. Unfortunately (and yet fortunately), those e-mails went unanswered as they were in the process of getting their first round of "Series A" funding. There was little time left to devote to our requests.
Throughout the next year, the local community members kept talking about holding the community-based DNN event ourselves. This idea was further sparked by a new Wrox book being written by Florida authors, called Professional DotNetNuke 5. This book was written specifically highlighting the new series of DotNetNuke® 5 releases. Unfortunately for them, the sales didn't take of right away, for a variety of reasons - though the book continued to raise great reviews and sell.
In March of 2009, the annual Orlando Code Camp was being held. At the pre-party, the topic of holding a DNN event was once again brought up, this time by our beloved evangelist, Joe Healy. It was relayed to him that we were waiting on a response and approval from the DotNetNuke Corporation. Simply put, we came up with, "Why can't we just do this ourselves?" Joe offered up the Microsoft facilities in Tampa, Florida for the venue, and suggested that we call it a "DNN Firestarter."
The ball was set in motion for the first community-only DNN event. Niether Microsoft nor the DotNetNuke Corporation would be organizing the event in any way. Like the United States Marine Corps, the event was born over a couple of drinks. Those in attendance at this "first event meeting" were Joe Healy, Ryan Morgan, Stan Schultes, and WIll Strohl. Will was appointed the event organizer.
The idea behind this first event was immediately realized:
- The local DNN speakers had to speak
- The event should be community-only
- The content must focus on DNN version 5 and above
The event board consisted of: Brian Scarbeau, Ryan Morgan, Stan Schultes, Darrell Hardy, and Will Strohl.
Due to scheduling conflicts, the earliest we could schedule the event was for June13th, only 11 weeks after the event planning was agreed upon, when our venue was available. Much was to be done before that date. Also, we were asked to change the name from DNN Firestarter. Among the suggested replacements, Day of DotNetNuke® won. It was perfect, and the URL was available.
Eventually, June 13th came, and the first annual Day of DotNetNuke® was held. There was a pre-party held for the sponsors, speakers, and volunteers. Attendees, sponsors, and speakers were confirmed to come in from as far away as Canada. There were 5 tracks, 30 sessions, 21 speakers, 18 volunteers, 28 sponsors, 169 registrants, and 135 attendees. Microsoft staff said that of all of the events that they have held there, the Day of DotNetNuke® had the most people in the building - and marketing only took place through Twitter, Facebook, and a banner ad on DotNetNuke.com. By all accounts, the first annual Day of DotNetNuke® was an overwhelming sucess.
It was always the intention since the beginning of the planning for the first annual event, that there would be more to follow each year. However, soon after the event ended, requests were already coming in asking how they could hold their own Day of DotNetNuke® in their area. The next logical step was to franchise the name and hold this event at the various locations throughout the world. Interest has already come in from Atlanta, Georgia, Washington, D.C., and Paris, France.