A Great Time at CodeMash
Quite possibly the best conference I’ve ever been to. Even though I attended very few sessions, what made the experience so great was chatting with users of both CodePlex and VS tip of the Day. And I have to say that I got a rush from so many people stopping by and saying hi that they read my blog. It is so awesome to know that people are finding value in my posts. It keeps me motivated and going.
Additionally, I want to give Jim Holmes (FrazzledDad) a huge shot out. He was not only a staff "volunteer" who did a talk at the very last timeslot on the very last day (talk about endurance), but he started pinging me to come to this conference for over a year. If anyone knows me, i can’t stand to be ask the same question for more than 9 months, before i’ll just give in. (i probably shouldn’t have said that here =P Seriously though, Jim did an amazing job organizing the event and keeping things moving smoothly.
Next, i was blown away that the entire event staff was volunteers. You guys could have fooled me (well, actually you did.) What an excellent job! Also, only when I got there did i realize it was a conference targeted at locals in the Ohio and surrounding states. I was glad that neither paper I submitted had a formal timeslot, because it gave time for those locally to do presentations. And honestly, i enjoyed the informal open spaces much more. (but don’t worry Jim, i’ll still submit talks for next year =)
I ran two open spaces (informal chats in lieu of formal-style presentations), covering Tip of the Day and CodePlex. We had a great discussion in both. Also, I found myself doing 2 podcasts, one on me and stuff I’m doing, and the other was an open source open space (say that 5 times fast) which was captured on a podcast. I’ll put up pointers to both when they go live.
And lastly, as an extra bonus, I got to see old friends who live in the area. Thankfully I posted about being on CodeMash on Thursday. My friend Rob just happened to visit my blog for the first time in 2 months later that day, and we were able to make plans from there. I hadn’t seen them in 5 years. It was awesome, except for the guy who attempt to draft behind me on the Ohio Turnpike at 4am on my trip back to the hotel.
Again, thanks to all the event staff. You guys did an incredible job.