The upcoming 306|Flex conference in San Jose next year will feature a plethora of InsideRIA bloggers as well as a few other big names in the industry. In the past this has been one of the best conferences for sharpening your skills and making new contacts within the Flex industry, and if the speaker list is anything to go by then San Jose 2010 will be the best 360|Flex yet.

As of this morning there were only 20 early-bird price tickets left available, so if you haven't registered then get on it! And make sure you register using this url so they know I sent you. GO REGISTER NOW, and then come back to read the rest of the post.

Here are the top 10 talks I'm looking forward to, in chronological order according to the latest schedule (which is of course subject to change):

10. Michael Labriola - Apocalypse Soon? The remaking of ‘Flex Components’. Michael's talks are always extremely good, both in content and presentation. Don't miss him.

9. Drew McLean & RJ Owen - Obey: Building a Rules Engine with AS3 and the Hamcrest API. Drew McLean and I talk about our experiences building a rules engine with AS3, why this was a fun problem to solve, and why you might want to do it yourself some day. This talk will be extremely practical and give insights into many different parts of the Flex framework and AS3.

8. Garth Braithwaite - Your Flex App Looks Like Poo. InsideRIA blogger and the host of RIA Radio Garth is a well informed and very entertaining guy - this talk is likely to cover some topics on skinning and design you've thought about before in more depth than you considered and give you some good ideas on how to take them to the next level.

7. Jesse Warden - RobotLegs on Top of Gaia Flash Framework. I'm really interested in RobotLegs and hearing Jesse speak. Jesse's a well-respected veteran of the Flash and Flex space and one of the first names I learned when I entered the industry. You might know him as "JesterXL" or just "The Man."

6. Deepa Subramanium - Whats New in Flex 4 that’s NOT Spark! As a member of the Adobe Flex development team, Deepa has the corner on cool knowledge. Her presentations are always really well put together and talk about things I haven't done before, so I'll definitely check this one out. I've been over the Spark Component architecture a lot, so it'll be nice to hear about the other new things coming in Flex 4.

5. Ben Stucki & Wright Brothers - Defining the Future of Rich Internet Applications. Ben Stucki is one of the smartest guys I know. His work on Open Flux, Degrafa, AudioSpike and now with Reflex all speak to his abilities as an innovator, developer and entreprenuer. This talk is going to be about his new project, Reflex, in conjunction with Jacob and Tyler Wright. I don't know much about Reflex yet, but if Ben's involved it's definitely worth your attention.

4. Elad Elrom - Building Applications using Test Driven Development. TDD is the single best development practice I've ever learned. I'm excited to hear Elad put a new twist on it and give some practical examples on how to implement it in Flex with the hopes of using that information to refine the processes we have in my company.

3. Jun Heider - Silverlight Land for Flex Developers - Part 1: Working the front end and Eric Fickes - Silverlight Land for Flex Developers - Part 2: Working the back end. Like many developers coming from the Adobe world, I don't have much experience in Silverlight to date, but I know I need to. I expect this to be an accessible crash course in that technology - both Jun and Eric blog for InsideRIA and are experienced presenters who really know their stuff, so I'm sure it will be good.

2. Nate Beck - Flexible Games... game development with stuff you already know. InsideRIA blogger Nate Beck has a lot of experience in the game development world. I'm interested in hearing his tips on how to quickly execute on all the cool little ideas I've had for games but never put into practice.

1. Huyen Tue Dao - Greenthreading in Flex I was lucky to catch this talk by Huyen at last year's CFUnited conference, and it was probably the best talk at the entire show. Huyen's done an amazing amount of research on how to simulate threading in Flex and the advantages of doing so and put together a really well crafted presentation on the topic. The updated version can only be better - definitely don't miss this one.

All of these speakers will enhance your skills as a Flex developer, as well as your mind as a thinker, your social life, and quite possible your peace of mind. Past attendees have gone on to do great things like inventing the microwave, draft an international peace treaty, and jump buildings in a single bound - just think of what you might do.

That's just a taste of some of the great stuff coming - I didn't even mention the keynote presentations or talks given by other InsideRIA bloggers like Kevin Hoyt, Jeffry Houser, Dan Florio, Tom Gonzalez, Ryan Stewart or Yakov Fain, to name a few. If you're a Flex developer looking to attend only one conference this year, this is the one you should choose - go register now.

Read more from RJ Owen.