Coming off our 2015 conference kick-off at App Nation / CES, we've kept the train rolling by rebounding straight into a couple of events held in San Francisco.

Forward 2

The first event was Forward 2, the 2nd Javascript-focused event from ForwardJS. It was an awesome 3-day event that featured a single day conference, loaded with speakers, and bookended with with workshop days. The organizers really created a stellar opportunity for front- and back-end developers to take part in some brilliant workshops, and sit in on sessions from a variety of all-stars in the tech community. I even ran into a college friend who had flown in just to see a session with Douglas Crockford.

One of our own founders, Dan Sines, had an opportunity to give a talk, and really knocked it out of the park. Discussing the need for personalization on the internet and where others have struggled before, he chronicles the path and reason that the Traitify API exists, all the while mapping it to a wonderfully nerdy Star Wars theme.

I really have to give a major shoutout to Taylor Smith and the rest of the ForwardJS team for creating what is hands-down the smoothest conference for us as sponsors. They really treated us like kings. We all walked away with sponsor-exclusive swag (hoodies, headbands), and were taken care of through the day with drinks, lunch, and plenty of Ghirardelli chocolate.

If your interested in attending a ForwardJS event, keep an eye out for Forward 3. It's sure to be a blast, and we'll be back sponsoring and with another talk!

Developer Week 2015

After a 48 hour break, and with plenty more team members arriving in the Bay Area, we went straight into Developer Week.

Developer Week consists of several technology centric events that take place around San Francisco across, well, a week. They kicked off the expo with a wonderful 2-day, challenge-based Hackathon, bring together nearly 600 eager individuals. We had our API on offer to be used, with a GoPro/Drone pack as a prize for our favorite API use. We saw some awesome utilizations of personality, from team building apps to recipe recommendation engines to a site that would match people to adoptable dogs. In the end we not only gave away our main prize, but also gave out a Bose speaker as a runner-up. Naturally we connected to every project, so I'm sure you'll see them posted here in the near future.

I feel a tad bit guilty, but I have to say that I was super proud to see some of our own developers deciding to enter into some challenges, with a couple of them taking 1st or 2nd place!

And while the hackathon was an energy-draining couple of days, we were still going full-steam ahead as it wrapped up and led straight into 2 conference days, the main event of Developer Week. It was a honor to have several thousand attendees check out Traitify, and be sharing an expo hall amongst royalty like HP, Microsoft, Robert Half, and more.

Dan was able to give his talk to a new audience, and we also had our Director of Development, Eric Fleming, give a killer talk on the gigantic task of creating an API. He dominated the main stage, with a packed house coming out to hear him.

This was one of Eric's first speaking engagements, and it left me pumped to track down more opportunities for him.

And that was Forward 2 and Developer Week! We had a blast, having a good chunk of our team congregating in San Francisco for a week (much longer for some), and being able to spread the word about what we're all trying to achieve. Once most of our team had left, I was able to attend the closing party for Developer Week at Yelp's headquarters, and it really spoke to what we're doing in the number of people that recognized me or our brand, and expressed how interesting and smart they thought our product was, or that they were already dreaming up ways to use our API.

Moments like that let us all relax a little, and be proud of what we've created.