Late posting, so reduced notes!
- Speaker party was good. Room was loud when full due to wood walls and nothing to dampen sound.
- Finding the college was easy. Finding the building wasn’t quite so obvious. A couple more signs would help and maybe call out where to park a little better – more than one parking lot. Makes me wish that we could put in more precise locations – lat/long to the parking lot & front door!
- Great space for an event.
- Sponsors were on 2nd floor, reg and lunch were on the first floor. Seemed to work well.
- Lunch was salad, pasta, red sauce, and breadsticks. Sauce tends to splatter – have a plan for spot cleaning shirts!
- End of day raffle was in a big stepped auditorium (college style), nice for everyone to sit and relax. I wish we had that in Orlando.
- My session went ok. Was first time out and wanted to try some things, came back with useful notes for my 2nd attempt (next post).
- After party location at the Alley was good, and food looked really good.
- General area was good. I stayed at Residence Inn, tons of restaurants near by and a book store too
- It was cold. 35 degrees cold.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the trip was a conversation at the speaker party. Another speaker brought a former colleague that works in IT, but not SQL. He was very impressed at being welcomed and included in conversations, said it was much different than his previous experiences within his own specialty. I don’t think we take for granted the friendliness of our culture, but it’s easy to think the rest of IT is that way and it’s not always. Also illustrates how much good you can do with a simple pleasant greeting.
