A Worthwhile Idea?

I had an idea that I need to vett in public to know if it’s worth pursuing.

Challenge:

The Hampton Roads area of Virginia has been neglected by technology vendors for years.  Few ever bother to show up and demonstrate their products, provide presentations or collaborative sessions.  Folks here that want that sort of thing have to drive to Washington, D.C. usually, if lucky maybe Richmond.  Most employers can’t afford to send their tech staff to conferences in NY, Chicago, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Orlando, etc.  So we’re left to view web sites, videos, and maybe books.  Sharing ideas is a matter of personal connections, blogs, web forums, and that’s about it.  This is the Siberia of technology-related community.

Proposal:

Gather technology folks from various idioms to present topics at one place, maybe once per year, at some place like the VB Convention Center and charge local visitors nothing more than cans of food for the local Food Bank.  Topics could range from “how-to” sessions on popular products like Photoshop, iMovie, Visual Studio, to operating systems and enterprise topics like Windows Server, MDT deployments, System Center products, SQL Server, Sharepoint, scripting and so on.

Get folks together to share ideas, learn, grow.  Maybe give vendors something to show up for and pitch in as well.  And all of it for a good cause.

So far I haven’t had much luck getting any interest.  If you, or someone you know, lives near the area**, let me know if you think this is a good idea.  Whether you’d be interested from the aspect of being a presenter, or an attendee.  I’d like to know if this is a feasible idea.

(Hampton Roads is a colloquial name that refers to the southeastern corner of Virginia and includes the cities of Hampton, Newport News, Yorktown, Williamsburg, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Suffolk and Virginia Beach)