Skip to main content

Why I Hate Good Conferences: CodeMash Wrap-up

A good conference like CodeMash really throws me off-kilter. I spend two days in uber-technology / developer land only to return to reality with a crashing blow. I'm sure my manager hates me with a passion afterwards too. I summon up a dozen or so new, cool (well, at least I think they're cool) ideas in my head and I pour them all into emails and just start firing. Mind you, they're well-thought-out but I'm sure it's a bit overwhelming.

Oh well, at least I'm passionate.

It's tough for me to manage my expectations after speaking at length with cool folks like Josh Holmes and witnessing great presentations from Brian Prince, Bill Wagner, and Scott Hanselman (yes, these are Microsoft-centric folks...see CodeMash 2008: Day 1 post). As a slightly-introverted person, it surprises me how much I enjoy meeting and interacting with the kinds of interesting people attending CodeMash. I also tend to become a deer in headlights with all the great directions I could take given exposure to all these smart technologists.

I must temper my ADHD/ADD (no, I don't really think I have this...well probably not, but no offense to anyone who does) and typical lack of patience; seek focus, and get a plan together. I'm definitely going to snag some ASP.Net 3.5/C# 3.0 and MOSS books. I also want to up the bar on my public speaking in terms of frequency, quality, and breadth of audience. Finally, I'm pledging to continue to focus on relationship building [with the community] and my technology evangelism endeavors. Whew, that ought to keep me busy for a while.

...and I'm not afraid to admit: F# is a bit over my head. Looks cool but I'll let the science/match folks leverage that one for now. My interests are more on the line of business, pragmatic applications anyway.

As in last year, great work organizers. Until next year!

Comments

Unknown said…
Amen, brother. Amen!

Popular posts from this blog

Starting a New Blog with my Cousin

On 9/15/2006, my cousin (he's really a 2nd cousin many times removed...I'm not convinced we're actually related ;-) John Ingrisano and I will launch a new blog targeted to the small business owner. He'll provide most of the content and I will provide the technical and marketing expertise. Ok, ok, starting a blog isn't rocket science but we're aiming to [eventually] derive some sort of profit from this venture, so I plan on doing this right. The two blogs I currently maintain live on the free Blogger.com and LiveJournal.com. I'll be covering the adventure here on Effective Thoughts--providing insight as to what worked and what didn't. To start off, our first activities are: Choose a name and a theme Find a host Help John learn the ins and outs of blogging Implement the site: look/feel, about/bio, 1st content, announcements, etc. Understand marketing best practices To this end, here is some research I compiled: Finding a host http://en...

Switching the Parents to Ubuntu...?

I spent a half hour or so recently on the phone walking my Mom through a technical issue. Tentatively, I diagnosed her issue as a hard drive failure. She brought it over on her last visit and sure enough, the Dell XPS 450 from circa 1999 sounds like a bad coin-operated laundry at full capacity. I was aghast to discover she's running Windows 98. Ugh. Also, her recovery disk is just that--for recovery. I don't believe I'll be able to re-install Win98 on a new hard drive. That, coupled with the end of Microsoft (and Dell) support for Win98, got me thinking about Linux. (and she's not intense about her computing needs...and she doesn't want to spend much money...) I've been reading good things about switching one's parents to Ubuntu. Any thoughts out there?