Why We're Organizing TruffleCon 2018
As you have hopefully heard by now, TruffleCon, Truffle's first-ever user conference, will be on October 5-7, 2018 in Portland, Oregon, U.S.A.
Why TruffleCon?¶
There is certainly no shortage of conferences related to Ethereum. Ethereal recently wrapped up in New York City, and Devcon4 is ramping up in Prague later on this year. There's also EDCON, EthCC, and plenty more, especially when you count those that intersect with the larger blockchain space.
And yet, these events usually have a focus on the larger ecosystem. What about the people who are deep in the trenches, building the dapps and deploying the contracts?
We want TruffleCon to be the place for people who are doing the building.
Also, many developers are working in silos, connected to other teams only by GitHub, StackExchange, Reddit, or other "weak ties". We want to strengthen those connections to bring people together.
We want people to share their ideas, and talk about their successes and challenges. We want people to promote their projects, of course, and professional networking is always a part of these events, but more than anything else, we want people to be heard.
Why now?¶
We've noticed a shift over the past year or so in the usage of Truffle.
Whereas many of the comments and requests in our GitHub channel and GitHub issues were originally regarding local tests, and in sandboxes, we noticed more and more people deploying their contracts to the public test networks and even the mainnet. While this, of course, was always the intention, it shows that confidence in our tools and the Ethereum ecosystem is growing.
We want to help people "go live". And so we believe that there has never been a better time than now.
Why Portland?¶
Portland is a vibrant city full of world-class food and drink, unmatched outdoor opportunities, and an excellent transportation system for getting where you need to go. And early October is typically a sweet spot where the days are still warm and dry, while the fall colors are starting to come into view.
If you've never been, you're missing out. And why not stay awhile once you're here? 
Photo courtesy of Flickr/sama093. Large version here.
See you in October!¶
From Truffle founder Tim Coulter:
"The best conference we could put on is one where there's a ton of active engagement. I want people to feel like they are surrounded by other people who can help them. And I want them to leave feeling like they learned something and that the Truffle community is better off because they were there.
If we do it right, people will go home inspired, and will change how they do their development."
We can't wait to see you there. If you have questions, feel free to tweet us at @trufflesuite. And please use the hashtag #TruffleCon.
Mike Pumphrey is an Enterprise Trainer at ConsenSys working on the Truffle team. With over a dozen years of experience in documentation, support, and training, Mike is passionate about making technical concepts understandable to a wider audience. Mike is also the lead organizer for TruffleCon 2018.