By Don Burnett

The May 2008 Michigan Interactive Designers Coffee meeting is being postponed so we can take a two day field trip to RIA Palooza in Chicago.. You ask what RIA Palooza is..???

http://www.riapalooza.com/index.htm

The Event (In the "Palooza" spirit, It's free to attend):

Friday, May 30, 2008 (6 pm CT)
Saturday, May 31, 2008 (9AM TO 5pm CT)
Illinois Technology Association Chicago, IL

Join your fellow RIA professionals for RIApalooza, a invaluable two day event aimed at exploring and promoting the development of Rich Internet Applications.

RIApalooza promises a platform agnostic and "PowerPoint-Free" zone, which means we are going to forgo the boring marketing pitches in favor of talking technology. RIApalooza is about creating Rich Internet Applications; how to go about building them and what is being built.

The event begins with a social meet-and-greet, Friday, May 30, 2008 from 6pm to 10pm. Presentations and sessions will be held Saturday, May 31, 2008 from 9am to 5pm.

The event will be held at the Illinois Technology Association, located at 200 S Wacker Drive 15th Floor Chicago, IL 60606.

Click here to register now.

Keynote Presentation
Tim Heuer & Corrina Barber
About The Speakers:
Tim Heuer is a program manager for Microsoft Silverlight working on the developer community team. Tim has worked with Microsoft developer tools and technologies since the early 1990s. Tim is extremely passionate about Microsoft, but also enjoys learning new technologies and frameworks that exist. His main passion lies in the web technologies and loves working with software developers to share and learn knowledge in this space. He's inflicted with the unfortunate disease that his work is also his hobby and he loves technology. You can usually find him behind the keyboard trying to learn something new. You can find him online sharing his findings of technology at http://timheuer.com/blog/.
Corrina Barber is a user experience designer at Microsoft with a background in both user experience design and computer science. She has worked on various aspects of Visual Studio since 2001 including editor and code navigation, languages, Visual Studio Team System, and now Silverlight. Prior to joining Microsoft she worked as an independent contractor designing and developing websites with a particular focus on creating rich interactive and aesthetically pleasing user experience sites.
 

Agile Flex Application Development: How Mammoths Stay Slim
Ka Wai Cheung, We Are Mammoth
Description:
In this session, Ka Wai will discuss the philosophies behind smarter and more efficient RIA development. He will also unveil X2O: a web-based data modeling framework for Flash and Flex applications. Using X2O, Ka Wai will build a database-driven, content-managed RIA by his lonesome in just minutes.
About The Speaker:
Ka Wai Cheung is a partner at We Are Mammoth, a privately-held company in Chicago specializing in Flex RIAdevelopment. He co-authored the book Flash Application Design Solutions (Apress, 2006) and has written for Digital Web Magazine, Actionscript.org, and HOW Magazine online.
Ka Wai works on more efficient, agile processes for developing database-driven software applications using Flash and Flex. He has spoken on the topic of agile Flash development at conferences like FITC and Flashbelt in the past.
 

Fast. Smart. Agile.  User Experience Driven Agile Development
Matt Nolker, Pathfinder Development
Description:
This session will cover tips and tricks for leveraging user experience design together with Agile development best practices to break projects into small steps, create realistic time frames, meet deadlines, and deliver new features and releases every few weeks while incorporating constant feedback and improvements. These techniques are based on real world experiences and are applicable at any stage in the development cycle.
About The Speaker:
Matt heads Pathfinder’s User Experience Design team which works with directly with developers to ensure software that is easy to use and meets business objectives.  He brings over 15 years of experience in information architecture, usability, and solution design to developing best practices and strategies for client projects.  Matt's experience with designing for the web stretches back to 1993, when he left The Onion to begin an online publishing venture. Since then, he has worked as the lead information architect for First Chicago/Bank One’s Internet banking application, and lead brand, marketing and user experience design projects for clients such as Motorola, NYSE, Chicago Sun-Times and Procter & Gamble.
 

How RIA changes in application design.
Geoff Cubitt, Round Arch
Description:
How RIA changes in application design.  What are the challenges with trying to go too far with AJAX based solutions. We'll look at a piece of functionality written in Dojo vs. Flex for example and discuss the performance and experience differences as well as the amount of code required to achieve both.  We'll look at ways to take this might be to look at how RIAs can change the conception of portal and search and explore different implementation models such as:  AJAX, AJAX Framework, Flex, Silverlight, etc.
About The Speaker:
President/Chief Technology Officer at Round Arch, Geoff is responsible for establishing the technology vision that guides the development of our service offerings, delivery methodology and vendor partner relationships. Together with the Chief Experience Officer, Geoff shapes a unified vision of user experience and technology that is the essence of Roundarch. Geoff has led the build-out of Roundarch’s highly successful J2EE frameworks and Rich Internet Application delivery offering. Geoff has 18 years of systems development, operations improvement and consulting experience, with the past 10 years focused on eBusiness/CRM. Prior to joining Roundarch Geoff was one of the founding members of Deloitte Consulting’s CRM and eBusiness practice. Geoff has significant experience designing and managing complex Web solutions with integration to enterprise systems for several industry-leading organizations including American Express, Bear Stearns, JPMorgan Chase, Northern Trust, HP, Agilent, Molex, Waters, Baxter Healthcare and Best Buy. Geoff has an MS in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University and a BS in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University.
 

Silverlight and RIA
Corey Miller, Magenic
Description:
Forthcoming...
About The Speaker:
Corey is a professional designer and software developer with extensive experience in multimedia, web & windows based applications. A pioneer in Flash and Silverlight development, he uniquely combines design sensibility with rock-solid Microsoft .NET development skills. Recently, he was instrumental in developing a Silverlight business application (the first of its kind) for a major railroad company. Corey is highly active in the designer/developer space and has served as a presenting speaker at numerous community events including CNUG and MADNUG.
 

Better Designer/Developer Collaboration with WFP & XML
Anthony Handley, Magenic
Description:
In this session, Anthony will showcase a recent WPF application and demonstrate how XAML & WPF as a rich platform allows for better deisnger/developer collaboration
About The Speaker:
Anthony Handley is a Senior Consultant and User Experience Specialist at Magenic and has over 15 years experience in interactive design and creative direction. He has a passion for clean, user-centered design and leads Magenic's UX practice in Chicago.