RDU Code Camp has come and gone, and even though I couldn't make a single session, I am coming away quite rejuvenated on the strength of the community.
I had a great time meeting folks I only knew from Twitter before:
Rachel Appel,
Alan Stevens,
David Penton,
Mike Eaton,
Dave Donaldson, and
Nate Kohari, to name a few. I didn't get to talk with them as much as I would have liked, but enough to feel like I don't solely know them from their Twitter profile anymore. I also had a great time with the guys from Richmond:
Kevin Hazzard and
Justin Etheredge. It looks like we may be able to get Kevin to come speak at TriNUG in January!
I have a few regrets: I wish we had more volunteers, and that I could have delegated more. I may have then had the opportunity to participate a bit more, but maybe that's what other Code Camps are for. Also,
Michael Neel came all the way from TN, and I don't think I got the chance to say one word to him the whole weekend.
The Speaker's Dinner went great, but
some folks are never happy, and
whine about how the Speaker's Dinner is elitist. I think opening up the dinner as a pre-event for all would be great, but I still haven't figured out how to make it work in terms of managing headcount/reservations/etc. It's definitely something I want to explore for the next Code Camp.
I think the Code Camp went off great, but we did have a few areas we can improve on. I think our abstract submission/acceptance cycle needs to have more feedback in it, and there is a lot of information we need to get out in a much more timely fashion. I think the focus is too much on the date of Code Camp, and there needs to be a timeline of deadlines leading up to that where information is announced.
James Avery
proposed ShadowCamp as a day-after event for continuing the open discussions from the Open Spaces at Code Camp. I thought this went off amazingly well, and would love to see it embraced at more Code Camps, and really anywhere where lots of developers gather - Codemash Shadowcamp maybe?