All posts by rbowen

On the plane

On the plane on the way to Atlanta, on the way to Portland.

Going through security was the least painful that it has been in a long time. I suppose that once one gets used to it, it gets better. Or perhaps it really is getting better.

This time, I even had two laptops, and this earned me no more than a half-hearted attempt at a joke.

I brought “Dancing Barefoot” with me. I actually obtained it last year at OSCon, but had not gotten around to reading it yet. I started it in the airport, and finished it shortly after takeoff. Wil Wheaton is a great writer. While the writing style is more akin to blogging than to great literature, he’s smart, funny, and in touch with what it’s like to be a geek in a world that doesn’t understand geeks. Highly recommended, even if you can’t get the autographed version. 😉

Then I started reading “Memoirs Found in a Bathtub” by Stanislaw Lem. It is strange, but it has a historical slant that appeals to me. I’ve often wondered what future generations of archaelogists would think of us if, somehow, our written record were lost. Well, that’s what the book is about

Anyhoo, I’m about halfway to Atlanta, and starting to really look forward to the conference. I’m not quite as prepared as I’d like to be, but I’ll look through my presentation again in Atlanta.

I brought some John Wayne movies, and I’ll probably watch them most of the way to Portland, if my battery holds out.

(Written on my Tungsten E, using my infrared wireless keyboard. Yay, cool toys!)

Leaving for OSCon

For no special reason
I am leaving you for awhile tonight
I’m flying far above you
Still I love you
You make things right
…
Well, you know me I’m a nomad
I can’t feel bad
About the way I am
I’ve been rolling around
My whole life
You’re my candlebright in the window
You guide me back again
And I come when you shine
(Candlebright, by Stevie Nicks)

How does one make a 6 year old understand that I love travelling, love going to these conferences, but hate being away from her? I think that she almost gets it. And what’s even cooler, she’s starting to talk like she wants to visit exotic places too. I think that the great adventures are still before us.

When I think about you
I think about how much I
Miss you when you’re not around
When I think about you
I think about how much I
Can’t wait to hear the sound
Of your laughter
Time and distance never matter
Well I miss you now
(I miss you now, by Stevie Nicks)

Packing for OSCon

I have this recurring problem when packing for a conference. Should I dress as mild-mannered reporter, or as Superman?

Um … I mean … should I dress in “professional casual” or in “slovenly geek”? On the one hand, I’m presenting myself as the CEO of Cooper McGregor, Inc, and so should look at least a little bit like I’m a professional, right? On the other hand, most everybody else will dress like they just rolled out of bed on a Saturday morning and are sitting watching looney toons.

Decisions, decisions.

TheReg discusses Wikis

While I certainly don’t agree with all of their comments, I find myself leaning rather strongly towards the general ideas espoused – namely, that wikis are written by people that like wikis and appeal to people that like wikis (this being a rather small subset of the general population), and that their utopian view that “good stuff will spontaneously “emerge”” is unrealistic at best.

Please understand that I’m not trashing WIkipedia specifically, since I really have almost no experience using it. I do, however, tend to feel this way towards online documentation that is developed in a Wikified media. I particularly liked this:

There’s nothing wrong with Wikipedia that isn’t summed up by the fiddlers’ problematic war cry of “if you don’t like it, fix it!” It’s really rather like being urged to liven up a boring stranger’s very poorly-attended party by showing up. Of course it would make it more interesting. But why should anyone bother? There may be a good reason no one shows up in the first place.

Sure, the Register is opinionated and crass, but they’re also amusing, and, frequently, spot-on.

Feedback

I’ve been listening to Feedback. It’s a collection of the songs that Rush grew up on. Highly recommended. Particularly if, like me, you grew up on Rush without the benefit of hearing what they grew up on. Summertime Blues and The Seeker are are the two songs that Rush did at the concert that I went to. Also great is the track Heart full of Soul.

And, while I’m on the topic of Rush, I have an admission to make. I always used to think of Alex Lifeson as that other guy in Rush. After seeing him play the guitar, I can never again think that. Watching his fingers move on the strings was like watching some kind of dance. He had about a dozen different guitars, and used a different one for different songs. And he’s truly an artist.

And, of course, the ad-lib rambling during Strangiatto was … surreal. He told a odd little story sounded like a dream sequence. Something about a goat driving the tour bus. “How does a goat know how to drive? And where’s the sheep?” When they were leaving the concert arena, the goat had all of the receipts. “What was the goat doing with the receipts? For that matter, where does a goat keep receipts? I know. Do you?”

There’s a hint of this on “Rush in Rio”, but you can’t really tell what he’s saying. It was very odd, but oddly funny.

More hostages in Iraq

Three Kenyans, three Indians, and an Egyptian are being held hostage in Iraq with similar threats as before – ie, that one will be beheaded every 72 hours if their employer did not leave Iraq. The company appears to be a Kuwaiti company, perhaps a trucking company. They’ve also asked these three countries to withdraw their military personnel from Iraq. It appears that Kenya at least has complied, urging all of their citizens to immediately leave Iraq.

Granted, I don’t keep up on the news very well, but I was surprised to see this story, having not heard any mention of it in the US media.

It’s a little alarming that these sorts of tactics are being successful. It doesn’t bode well for the role of an international force anywhere in the future if all of the smaller entities flee when threatened.

How to attend a conference

I attended my first conference in 1996, and, almost without exception, I’ve been to at least one conference, at usually two or three, every year since then. I’ve attended conferences differently, and observed a large number of people attending conferences differently. My first conference (some Sun event, for reasons that I don’t remember) didn’t do much for me, because I had no goals in attending the conference, except that I’d heard of some new thing called Java, and because I had no idea what to expect.

The key to a good conference experience is to have a good idea of what you expect to get out of it, and then do whatever is necessary to accomplish that end. If you’re very new to attending conferences, you may not know what sorts of things those could be. To this end, I’ve compiled a short list of some of the most common ways that people view conferences, at least based on their behavior. While there’s certainly some humor in this, it’s also a serious effort to get you to think about how to attend a conference so that you don’t get to the end of it and feel a sense of regret about what you’ve missed out on.

Of course, conferences will look somewhat different to me than many folks, since I’ve also been speaking at every conference I’ve attended since 1998.

Conference as week-long party

If you’re like me, a conference is the closest thing to a vacation that you get. It’s a week away from work, away from responsibility, and away from doing dishes. Party time! From observing folks at conferences, it would seem that the seasoned conference attendees have fallen into this view. The goal of any decent conference, therefore, is to spend as much time as possible hopelessly inebriated, and to attend as many parties as you can possibly get an invitation to, and several more if at all possible.

If this is your view of conferences, there are some warnings that I should make:

  • Most folks have digital cameras these days, and they will post their pictures to their web sites
  • Despite what you may think, your boss does read your blog
  • If you can produce no evidence that the conference was a worthwhile investment, you won’t get to come back next year

Conference as social gathering

This is somewhat different from Conference as Party. In most of the world, who you know is significantly more important than what you know. Conferences are the best possible place and time to meet the important people in your field, and to shmooze. Sometimes this is called “networking.” I’m not sure what the appropriate term is these days.

The seasoned conference-goer who is not firmly in category one is almost certainly in this category. They’ve long since exhausted category three, and now attend the conference to be with their friends. I readily admit that this is where I wind up. Although I tend to spend an inordinate amount of time contributing to the production of the actual conference (ie, speaking), I try to spend the rest of the time catching up with friends who I get to see two or three times a year, other than time online, which is … different.

Conference as classroom

Most first-time conference-goers view a conference as an academic event. They are there to learn. It’s a good idea to have in mind exactly what it is that you want to learn. And do your research before (ie, reading all online available information on the topic) so that you are not wasting your time, and the experts’ time, asking questions that are in the FAQ. This should be a time when you get the hard questions answered, not the easy ones. If you’re asking the easy questions at a conference, you’ve wasted your money.

This is, incidentally, why I’m always amazed at how well-attended my “intro to apache” tutorial is. Not that I’m saying you shouldn’t come, but it always seems populated with people who have not done the most basic of preparation work. And they’re paying extra to attend this tutorial. I sincerely hope that I’m giving them the content that they paid for, but I can’t help wonder if their money would have been better spent if they just read the documentation and then attended one of the other tutorials.

Particularly at a conference like OSCon, it’s very uncommon that something is covered in a session that is not already available online somewhere. Granted, getting it right from the expert, and being able to ask for clarification and demonstration, is of enormous value. But do the work ahead of time to make that experience more worthwhile.

Conference as vacation

One of these days, I’d like to just attend a conference. Not speak. Not have a panel. Not do “guru is in” sessions. Not even have to introduce anyone or chair a talk. But I don’t expect that’s going to happen any time soon. I am very ready to admit that I stand entirely on the shoulders of giants, and I owe much more back to the community than they can ever owe to me.

Having said that, I’m starting to view conferences as vacations. I give two or three talks (ok, at ApacheCon it’s more like four or five. Sheesh.) and in exchange I get to have a few days off. No to party, or socialize, but just to get away. There’s certainly an aspect of the party and social gathering mixed in there for me. Indeed, the Sams Publishing authors’ dinners are some of the high points of my year. But looking at the schedule for OSCon, the first thing that came to mind was that I have Tuesday and Thursday completely off, and I’ll probably just go geocaching. 🙂

Conclusion

Which one of these categories you fall into is entirely up to you. I just encourage you to give it a great deal of thought before you get on the plane, so that when you arrive, you’re entirely in the right mind-set to make the most of the conference.

For example, if you intend to have the conference be a social gathering, or a party, then you have to firmly decide to be the last one to leave any event, that you won’t sleep more than absolutely necessary, and that you are willing to buy drinks for those persons reticent to trade the talk on LOTR for your company.

Or, if you intend to treat it as an academic gathering, make sure you know exactly what you want to learn, and don’t let that speaker out of your sight until they have answered your questions. While many of the speakers just want to get back to the speakers lounge, or to the next party, most of them enjoy discussing their topic and answering (intelligent) questions about it. They will, however, swiftly tire of questions that you should have answered by reading the FAQ.

And if you intend to treat it just as a vacation, make sure you stage a few photos of you appearing studious, and that you cram the printed notes from a few important sessions on the plane back, so that you can persuade your boss that you need to come again next year.

See y’all at OSCon!