When I was at RIAUnleashed a few weeks ago I commented about how happy I was that this was going to be the last presentation for the year. I love presenting. But at the same time, it was kind of nice to end the "conference year" and look forward to the holidays. Of course, a few days later I was telling my buddy Todd that I wanted to do a bit more. Not one more presentation - but... just one more community thing before the year ended. I thought - why not do a panel? For the most part they are easy to do. Invite speakers. Get an audience. Let the questions flow. Then I thought - why not try to get a set of some of the biggest names in the community - throw them together and see how many people we can get onto Connect in one session. And so - the End of the Year ColdFusion Panel of Uber Awesomeness was born.

While speaking to Todd, he reminded me of the ColdFusion Panel pod cast. It had been dormant for a while. This seems like the perfect opportunity to start it up again. Dan Vega and Todd have allowed me to join their group and we will be using this meeting to kick off the rebirth.

To be clear - this is for fun. There is no preset topic. Consider it like meeting some of your favorite ColdFusion personalities at the bar and having the chance to ask them what they think.

Our current list of speakers is:

Ben Nadel, supposedly he blogs
Adam Lehman, who said, I kid you not, "seems like this would be a great opportunity for me to say things that get me in trouble"
Jason Dean, the guy who looks like the Half Life guy
Scott Stroz, the ColdFusion guy (well, the one holding the beer)
Marc Esher, the guy who taught me not to fear continuous integration
Todd Sharp, the Slide Ninja
Raymond Camden, supposedly he has a wish list
Dan Vega, the cool guy

And I've got a few 'maybies' as well. So the date? It will be held December 8th at 11AM CST. It will be held on Connect and once closer to the date I'll post the URL. We will be recording it if you can't make it. And as I said - this is - hopefully - the beginning of many more panel discussions.

One more thing. Last week I gave away a copy of ColdFusion Builder. I've got a copy of ColdFusion Standard as well. If you show up to the panel, there is a slight chance I may be convinced to give that away as well.