Planning is underway for ZendCon

Has a location and date been chosen yet?

I really like how DPC is communicating the type of talks on their schedule; http://www.phpconference.nl/schedule

The icons could be improved, but it sure helps to quickly see if a talk is in-depth or just the basics.

I feel like I am being my typical loud mouth self, but: Real world project management would be one. We get a lot of Agile philosophy and perfect implementation stories, but it would be good to see something along the lines of Peter Schuh's Integrating Agile Development in the Real World.

I recognize ZendCon as a technical conference, but I would like to make it a predominantly technical conference. I think it is important to address the business side of programming, not just for fledgling freelancers like @DrydenMaker said, but also topics for small and medium businesses. I don't know if there would be enough for a completely separate track, but maybe a couple of talks per day.

Even though most attendees see managers as the Pointy Haired Boss, managers do attend and I think many useful business issues may be addressed.

I personally like the tutorial sessions - much like the "Taming the Untestable Beast" session. I'd certainly attend a tutorial session on ZF and no-SQL integration (flavor doesn't matter), ZF and BDD w/ PHPUnit, ZF-to-Solr best-practices, and end-to-end ZF-to-Jenkins-to-CI best practices.

I'd like to see Mike Pavlak riding a unicycle down the halls while juggling melons. (But that's probably not what you are looking for) :)

On a more serious note, I always enjoy solution based sessions. Sessions led by the average Joe who had a problem and walks you through how he (or she) solved it. Not only do you gain knowledge of the solution itself, but you also get a peek into someone else's researching/thought processes.

It might be cool if there were a couple business talks thrown in. Like help for fledgling Freelancers.

The MS presence has been ever growing in support of PHP. I would like to see a solid 'How PHP in your Microsoft Partner environment will Rock Your .NET Off'. A solid case for PHP instead of ASP.NET on the web (beyond religion).

I also like PHPTek's paperless idea. An attendee site with e-reader documents for everything at the con would be sweet.

Oh, and an official ical feed would be sweet too. It would be nice for keeping everyone updated about changes, even during the con.

I would like to see myself at the conference this year for a change ;)

Seriously, I've never been to ZendCon before but I've hardly heard any negative comments. Based just on the schedules I've seen from earlier years, it would be nice to see slightly less "Zend Framework" and a more diverse offering in frameworks. Maybe also framework/library interoperability would be good.

Plus, any of the topics I will send in to the CfP ;)

I've been to the Zendcon twice now, and so far it's been a worthwhile conference. What i would like to see is similar to what Will (whom I meet last year at the conference, great guy) listed.

- functional-style programming
- code testing, like BDD
- advanced topics
- API - The importance of/how to build
- more how to stuff

My $0.02

More:
1 - deployment
2 - functional-style programming
3 - standard tools (PHPUnit, etc.)
4 - advanced topics
5 - how-to rather than should-do topics

I definitely want to see a few community-centric talks.
I have no problem with product/service focused talks, but I'd be much more interested in "How to use this product/service" instead of the traditional "commercial" format of "Here's why you should use this product/service"

As a note to the vendor-driven speakers: Teach me how to use something and I will be more likely to use it than if you just tell me why I should use it.