Just about recovered mentally…
aKademy 2007 ended last Saturday afternoon and as part of the local team I left for the last time at 10:03pm on the Sunday. So approximately a week and a half of observing my first FLOSS conference while doing whatever was needed of me. I even got to talk to a few of the attendees and will hopefully be keeping in touch with a couple of them.
The most obvious point from it all was the level of effort Kenny Duffus put in to ensure things went as smoothly as possible. Certainly the efforts of all but a couple of the local team were very much appreciated and absolutely necessary through the conference, but it was the dedication of Kenny that kept things running and who was called on constantly by attendees and team alike whenever some non-trivial problem occurred.
From the local team, it was a good chance to get to know some better, both those I barely knew of and a few I’ve “known” for many years now, yet barely said more than a few words to. It’s always a pleasure to meet Jonathan, Chris, Neil and Kyle as they’re the ones I know best. Getting to know Sandy over the last couple of days was good and perhaps most surprisingly given the arguments I’ve had with him on #scotlug in the past, I really enjoyed talking with Kev.
As for the attendees I spoke with, most were fairly brief conversations and usually while I was trying to help them in the team office or we waited for Kenny to turn up to help them. Of the few I spoke with away from this environment, the following three come to mind: Olaf Jan Schmidt, Sebastian Kügler and Jos Poortvliet. All three clearly do great work for the KDE community and come across as being just generally “nice people” which is always a good starting point.
Oh yes, one person in particular I don’t think is going to become a close friend would be Aaron Seigo. Blank stares from a couple of random comments through the week and comparing him to an “old greek woman just after she’d grown a beard” at the end of the BBQ (well it was raining and he’d pulled his coat tight over his head and around his chin .. he really did!) probably suggest I shouldn’t bother him for some time.
Overall it was a great experience and a refreshing change from the atmosphere of being a CACert.org board member for the past three years which ended when I resigned in May. It’s not hard to see why the FLOSS world considers itself a community if the atmosphere at aKademy is anything to go by.