Things that interested me most…
Emma Persky’s Feature Recognition. Although challenged by being opposite Brian O’Neill’s freelancer talk (and let’s face it, what geek doesn’t dream of sticking it to the man and going ronin!). Best idea – move it to another time slot and that really worked I think. I thoroughly enjoyed it and it gave me ideas for five, six, seven more applications that I don’t have the skill (yet) or the resources to build (again, yet). The possibilities with pattern recognition are fascinating and though this technology has been studied for a while, it takes a good demo to move it from ‘yeah, sure’ to ‘oh, that’s cool’. Good job Emma!
Tracy Dempseys Life Wheel/Spokes demo – I’d not really thought about my priorities that way. I have therefore resolved to work on the areas most deficient (quality time with my kids, general day to day job satisfaction) and not worry about the areas I’m happy with (how current I am with technology etc, money). The interesting thing is not thinking about how much effort you put into these things but how happy you are with the results. For those areas where I want more – I’m going to work on them with the theory that you get out what you put in. It’s funny, I’ve been results oriented (and passionate and loudmouthed about achieving them) for years in my ‘professional’ life.
Gerard McBreen’s Digital Circle. I wasn’t interested in the Adobe FLEX/AIR stuff anywhere near as much but Digital Circle is like a taster-for-10 of some ideas I’ve had for years (and the reason I tried to start Infurious). I’d still like Infurious to be a ‘publisher’ for a small group of developers but don’t know how to approach it just yet. I need to think on that but would encourage anyone creating any sort of digital content (software, eBook, movies, animations) to join Digital Circle.
And the rest?
All of the others were good though not especially relevant to me (Ruby scales? Whoodathunkit?) and next time round I’d like to hear Richard’s presentation on webcasting. Nick’s talk on the New Music Economy was an alternative path to my promotion of ‘1000 fans’ but as he said on the day – there isn’t just ‘one way’. As an homage to the existing model of music economy, I bought ‘Feel Good Lost’, by Broken Social Scene last night from iTunes after a short listen to a track during BarCamp. I’ve not bought much new music recently so that was nice.
Best Bits– conversations in the corridors and between talks – finding out how people got into their line of work, why they made their choices and also discovering some pleasant feedback on things I’ve done (or could be about to release). I do need to talk to Will King about his OpenGeo data but that can wait for a little bit. Mix that in with a little WiMax and you’ve got a spicy meatball!
Worst Bits – the WiFi disaster. Something was definitely rotten in Kislev. I’m blogging about this concurrently but it flummoxed me and Paul Dundas and in the end to supply two rooms with intermittent WiFi, we ended up having to use three infrastructure access points and one ad-hoc access point. The latter was my laptop which effectively kept me from vegging out and using it which was probably a good thing.
Next steps?
OCC BBQ is on the 16th July down in Terryglass, County Tipperary (about 200 miles away from where I’m sitting as I type this). I’m driving down and will be sorting out some accommodation in the next day or so. Current thinking is to trip down on Tuesday afternoon (arriving before closing time at the pub), enjoy the BBQ throughout the Wednesday and then trip back on the Friday. That would mean two nights accommodation though.
I also want to continue that chat with Andy McMillan, Andrew Gribben and Matt Keenan about Co-working that we started right at the end when I was packing up. David Rice should also be involved but only if he can find a ‘first name twin’ like the rest of us. I’m joking, David. Mostly.
There was also some talk of doing another ‘event’ in six months? Maybe a TechLudd? (Go on, call it TechNorn or something). I’m up for helping get this going – I’d wanted to start an ‘Expo’ for tech companies for years!
Fabulous stuff today. My only regret was that I didn’t talk! I’m going to remedy that at OCC BBQ by the way as well as talking to some interesting people I’ve wanted to chat with for ages.
Thanks for the kind review – I had a blast, as well as learning a few lessons and coming up with a few ideas for next time. Something in 6 months will definately occur, we can work that out over the coming weeks!
& be sure to keep me informed on the OCC BBQ status, I’m still planning on hitching that ride. Promise you can bundle me in the boot if I get irratating!
Well, we can fit 4 bodies in the car. We could fit 5 theoretically but who would want to get THAT cosy with a geek?
Matt good to briefly met you at the barcamp. The lack of wifi actaully meant people listened more intently i thought! I’ve just registered to go to occ bbq as I’m in Limerick anyway at the stateofthemap.org conference on the 12th/13th and I look forward to chatting to you then.
Good indeed, Will. See you there!