Hey Apple, WWDC is broken

"Erica did NOT attempt to buy tickets and was NOT planning to attend WWDC; she has NEVER attended WWDC..." (last emphasis mine). That is information that would have been valuable up front for the reader. I am sure most commentators would have forgone the "sour grapes" response and gone with "ignorance" slant instead. Maybe Erica should keep her critical opinions to things which she has firsthand knowledge and experience. WWDC may have a lot of problems (I would have no way of knowing...much like Erica, I have not gone or will be going to WWDC) that need to be fixed but I would rather read an opinion by someone that is directly affected by it. Adding the "family obligations" info was a very lame attempt by an editor to stop criticism.

Erica, you're great. Your books have been invaluable, and I was able to attend your Voices That Matter talk in Philly. Indeed, such events are possible and profitable because Apple's events are scarce. Anyway, I was on the fence about WWDC last year and waited too long, so this year I got mine almost immediately.

I wish Apple would bring back (and expand) the Tech Talk Tours, where they bring speakers/experts to a half dozen or so cities. That would be a nice alternative. And perhaps they could expand WWDC to 10K but split up Mac vs iOS so it's more like two 5K audiences, with some overlap.

Finally, I think Apple would accept that WWDC is broken... in the same way the iPad 2 is. Too much demand, not enough supply. But it's harder to boost supply of iPads than tickets to a conference. They could've booked all of Moscone not just West, repeated some presentations, added more breaks and breakout sessions, etc.

Here's another suggestion, and suggested solution:

WWDC Registration: Broken or Not?
http://www.bighillsoftware.com/blog/wwdc-registration-broken-or-not/

WWDC is broken--anyone who has attended knows that, and I've been going since 1999. Disclosure: I got my ticket.

The problem starts with a venue to tiny which keeps Apple from upping attendance beyond 5,000. Moscone West was too small 2 years ago. Back then, there was quite a bit of unrest because rooms couldn't hold all who wanted to attend, which isn't what you at the time paid $1,200. And there's just too much material too quickly.

Perhaps splitting the conference up into Fall/Summer is a solution? Or make it a full 6-8 day event, from Monday all the way to Sunday? OTOH, that wouldn't take care of the scarcity issue. For that, the location of WWDC will have to change. Moscone North and South are underground bunkers, so I have no idea where Apple could hold this.

I think that too many seats would definitely result in lower value for each attendee. The value you get from a conference with 5,000 attendees is in the interactivity. More attendees kills interactivity.

Another value is exclusivity. Users of Apple products like to feel exclusive. This has always been a great marketing advantage for Apple and I understand they want to keep it as long as possible, even while growing their market share.

For all the others, WWDC2010 session recordings are available. I believe that this year's WWDC will be recorded as well.

So let me see here:

someone who has: never been to WWDC, wasn't going to WWDC, and didn't plan to buy a ticket at all is now calling the conference "broken" based on a single data point?

Setting aside the fact that this criticism is from someone who, literally, has no firsthand experience to base her opinion on, reading the post shows that Erica doesn't actually get the show. Saying it should be more like an OracleFest shows Erica has no earthly clue about the WWDC. At all.

Expanding the show's attendance would suck. The biggest value of the WWDC is, by far, the low Attendee:Engineer ratio. In fact, I found the last 2-3 to be almost too big in terms of getting a chance to talk to the people I needed to talk to. Going to 50,000 people ala Oracle? As of 2010, Apple had less than 50,000 employees TOTAL WORLDWIDE, and I'm counting receptionists and PR here. Oracle, in comparison, as of July 1, 2010, had 105,000 people.

Jacking up the Attendee:Engineer ratio by a factor of 10x would make it almost impossible to see the people you need to without a friggin' appointment, if then. Whoosh, there goes the primary value of the conference.

Multiple conferences a year sounds good, until you remember one of the reasons Apple stopped going to Macworld: multiple big shows a year take time. I'm unsure how many people have ever had to plan a WWDC or Macworld-sized show, but it takes real time. It takes time to cull down the tracks, it takes time to allow for that many people being away from their "real" jobs, etc. If I had to guess, i'd say active WWDC planning takes about six months to put on a good show. Now you want Apple to do this 2-3 times a year in different location? Were the engineers perchance going to be able to have any time to oh, I don't know, *work*?

Yes, it sucks that it took only 8 hours to sell out. For a lot of people in larger companies, or even smaller ones, including me, that's just not long enough. (Let me restate that: I couldn't get approval in time to get a ticket. Barring some Act Of Steve, I'm not going this year. It sucks, but such is life. You don't always get in.) But first-come, first served is the simplest, fairest method of all. It certainly beats the epic complications and WHINING that a lottery system would involve.

This wasn't a "sour grapes" article, it would have to move up a few steps to reach that level. This was a "I have no idea what i'm actually talking about, but since people on the internet are grousing, I'll write up something to grab me some hitcounts." w00t. You achieved that goal in style.

Just a few thoughts:

1) Are people really so caught off-guard by WWDC being announced every year that they can't start the process of approvals before it's announced? The cost is pretty much the same from year to year, and it would seem wise to have one's ducks in a row well in advance.

2) I agree that it would be nice if Apple announced the dates at least a few days or a week before tickets can be purchased. This could help eliminate the "I didn't even hear about it until it was over" syndrome. Even having the dates available can help with planning travel, although you wouldn't want to book a non-refundable ticket until you actually get a conference pass...

3) It would be nice to have a larger venue and accommodate more people, but bear in mind that doing so would also dilute attendees' access to Apple engineers in the labs, which is often one of the biggest draws. There are a finite number of Apple engineers, and it would be a shame to diminish the usefulness of the conference by doubling or tripling the number of people who are trying to talk to the same people.

I agree that this is broken, and obvious solutions are broken, too. (Triple the price? Double the attendance? Multiple WWDCs?). There's only so much of Apple developer and DTS time.

WWDC is already much less of a community and indie/university conference than it was even a few years ago, let alone 1994 when I first attended, and each year the situation only gets more insane. Sadly, things change. Those who want to be a part of a small community and get lots of face time with product developers need to find another company to support.

I look forward to the rapid release of videos again this year, and hope Apple comes up with a solution to better serve all its developers, not just a random sample.

Hmmmmmm sounds like someone couldn't get tickets and is now whining on her blog.

My advice to people who need their manager's approval before buying a ticket - get the approval ahead of time.

You know approximately when WWDC is going to be, how long it will be and the price range for a ticket - from the previous year's event.

A reasonable manager should be able to provisionally sign off on your attendance - assuming a given upper limit. When the tickets go on sale - you immediately buy one and claim it back on expenses.

If the event doesn't go ahead as planned or there is some other problem - then so be it. At least you don't have to go frantically running around with a last minute piece of paper trying to collect autographs.