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Agree on taking responsibility. There are a lot of excuses he could have made: economy, bad PR firm, etc. By taking blame he can now move on to fix things.

Also note, this is a perfect response in a PR crisis - taking responsibility (if not legal responsibility), and not behaving like it's everyone else's fault but your own.

I confess I don't understand this mentality. Why do you personally care that Joel took responsibility?

If I buy something, and the vendor screws up, if they give me a bunch of excuses, I am more likely to think they'll screw up again. If the vendor takes personal responsibility, there is less chance that they'll make the same mistake again.

Ah, I didn't get that you had bought a ticket.

In full disclosure I didn't. I am just throwing out opinions from the cheap seats. :-)

I agree. Would have loved to have went to the '09 conference though.

@spolsky: I guess you've really taken the locksmith lesson to heart then :-)

I'm confused. Didn't he put the blame on poor attendance?

I'm confused. Did you read just the first sentence?

The second: It’s my fault, actually. Followed by an entire post re: errors made in planning DevDays '11.