Help Keep the Show on the Road

For more than three decades, I’ve been sharing what I’ve learned with software engineers through conference sessions, books, articles, open-source projects, videos, podcasts, and dotNetTips.com.

Speaking at conferences—especially international conferences—is one of the most rewarding ways I can give back to the developer community. There is nothing quite like being in a room full of developers, sharing lessons learned from decades in the trenches, answering questions, and, hopefully, helping someone write better code or advance their career.

But there is a side of conference speaking that most attendees never see.

The Conference May Pay for the Flight. That Doesn’t Make the Trip Free.

International conferences are generous enough to cover airfare and hotel expenses for speakers. I’m extremely grateful for that. American conferences do not pay for travel and usually only cover 2 nights of hotel. No conference pays a speaking fee anymore.

But those expenses are only part of the real cost.

An international conference can mean being away from home and paying work for a week or more. There are travel days, meals, ground transportation, airport expenses, and plenty of other costs that aren’t always covered.

More importantly, there is the time.

A 45 or 60 minute conference session represents far more than an hour of work. There are often countless hours spent researching, creating examples, writing code, benchmarking, building slides, updating material, rehearsing, traveling, delivering the session, and answering questions afterward.

And while I’m doing all of that, I’m not doing paid client work.

I don’t say this to complain. I choose to speak because I believe sharing knowledge matters.

But keeping the show on the road has a real cost.

If My Work Has Helped You, You Can Help Me Keep Doing It

I’m not asking for donations.

Instead, if something I’ve created has helped you—an article, conference session, book, open-source library, video, podcast, benchmark, coding tip, or career advice—you can support my work while getting something useful in return.

Buy One of My Books

My books are built from decades of real-world software engineering experience.

They aren’t collections of theory pulled from documentation. They contain lessons I’ve learned building, fixing, optimizing, reviewing, and sometimes rescuing production software.

Buying one helps support my work while hopefully helping you become a better software engineer.

VIEW MY ROCK YOUR CODE BOOKS

VIEW MY ROCK YOUR CAREER BOOKS

Become a Paid Member of dotNetTips.com

I’ve been publishing software engineering content on dotNetTips.com since the early 2000s.

Paid memberships help support the time and expense required to research, test, benchmark, write, and publish the content I create.

If dotNetTips.com has helped you solve a problem, improve your code, or learn something new, becoming a paid member is one of the best ways you can help me keep it going.

BECOME A MEMBER

Shop the dotNetTips Store

Want something a little more fun?

Visit the dotNetTips store and grab something that lets you show off your developer pride while helping support the work I do.

SHOP THE STORE

Where Your Support Goes

Your support helps me continue:

Creating conference sessions and keynote presentations.
Traveling to conferences to speak with developers around the world.
Writing technical articles and tutorials for dotNetTips.com.
Researching and benchmarking .NET performance.
Writing and updating my books.
Creating videos, podcasts, and other educational content.
Building and maintaining open-source projects.
Sharing more than three decades of software engineering experience with the developer community.

In other words, it helps me keep doing what I’ve been doing for a very long time:

Helping developers write better code and build better careers.

This Isn’t About Buying Me a Plane Ticket

That distinction is important to me.

Conference organizers frequently cover my flight and hotel, and I greatly appreciate their support.

What I’m trying to offset is everything else that comes with continuing to do this work—the expenses, the preparation, and especially the time away from paid work.

I also don’t want anyone to feel obligated to support me financially.

If all you ever do is read an article, attend one of my sessions, use one of my open-source projects, or share something I’ve written with another developer, I’m glad you’re here.

But if my work has helped you and you’ve ever wondered how you could help me continue doing more of it, now you know.