Velocity, O’Reilly’s web performance and operations conference, is just a few weeks away. It takes place June 14-16 at the Santa Clara Convention Center. Gearing up for this fourth Velocity conference, I’m struck by how much it has grown.
Jesse Robbins and I, the Velocity co-chairs, were there at the 2007 meeting with Tim O’Reilly and team to brainstorm the idea.
Back then devops and frontend engineering were emerging disciplines in need of a gathering place.
O’Reilly Media, the seeker and shepherd of alpha geeks, recognized the importance of this community and the need for a place to exchange and evangelize best practices.
It was time to build a home where these tribes could gather.
Velocity started in 2008 as a two-day, two-track conference with 600 attendees.
In 2009 we added a third day for workshops and reached 700 attendees.
Velocity 2010 saw the addition of a third track dubbed “Velocity Culture”
and was our biggest year with 1,200 attendees (double the audience from just two years earlier).
In 2010 we rolled out Velocity China
which sold out. This was O’Reilly’s first technology conference in China and the audience was incredibly enthusiastic.
How’s Velocity 2011 look? One change is the new track on Mobile Performance, something everyone is thinking about. A fourth track, Products & Services, has been added.
And we’re on a path to surpass 2010’s attendance records.
(I love breaking benchmarks!)
Just when I thought we had taken Velocity to the max, I received a package from
John Allspaw and Mike Brittain
over at Etsy
containing these Velocity bath and body products (right).
I was incredibly excited, but two issues jumped out at me immediately.
First, would people be able to set aside the jokes about sysadmins and hygiene?
Second, Velocity isn’t just “for men” as the label indicates. In fact, this year we broke another record with more women speakers than ever before.
We’ll keep our focus on delivering a high-quality Velocity conference and leave Velocity bath products to someone else. The furthest we’ll stray is clothing — we’ve got another great Velocity t-shirt in store for attendees.
If you’re not registered please do that now. Last year we exceeded capacity and had to close walkup registrations. Go to Velocity registration and use the code VEL11RAD to get a 20% discount. Join the rest of the performance and devops community in making this the biggest, best Velocity ever. Jesse and I look forward to seeing you there.
Velocity 2011, being held June 14-16 in Santa Clara, Calif., offers the skills and tools you need to master web performance and operations.
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