Soooo. The Richmond CodeCamp ended a while ago. I have to admit that my experience this camp was a little frustrating, but it was 99% my fault. I'm hoping to draw up a list of lessons learned in the next few days to help me do better next time. For now, I've made a quick summary below.
Liked:
- I had a great time at the speakers' dinner on Friday night. The speakers were a fun collection of people. Richmond really has a good .NET community leadership team. (And I got to meet Justin's wife Sara, who was delightful: charming, funny, and most amazingly, not overwhelmed with all of the geeky computer talk going on around her. I would have clammed up in that scenario. I appreciate people who can go into an intimidating situation and have an easygoing, relaxed gregariousness --I'm not talking about bravado or fake buddy-buddy-ness, just a comfortable manner.)
- I was happy with my presentation, moreso the content than the delivery, though I was flustered.
- My discussion with Sixto and some guy I recognize from Ric user groups about testing and architecture.
- The bed at Spring Hill Suites, despite using it far less than I would have preferred.
- Seeing Travis, Jordan, and Justin and all of my friends/acquaintances in the Ric user group community.
Disliked:
- I got almost no value from any of the presentations I attended. It was mostly me, not them, although I do have some critiques to make later.
- I worked my ass off to get the presentation in a very good state, and it was completely wasted on almost everyone at my talk.
- Apparently several people thought my talk was about how to test software better at the system level...like how "testers" can work smarter. Of course, they didn't really get that excited by my talk full of coding samples to improve how developers can write unit tests better and easier.
- I knew it was a possibility that only a few people would show at my talk, especially considering the super celebrity Amanda Laucher was speaking at the same time. And I had fears that the few people who did come would already know most of the things I was presenting. However, I didn't foresee the majority attendees to my session having zero interest in what I had to say. I just don't understand people who spend a full Saturdy on CodeCamp, but have no passion or curiosity for software development.
- And the <10 people who did show sat mostly in the back row; so with the presentation booth in a fixed location, I'm screaming to talk to them
- AHHHHHG Not getting much sleep the last several night, compounding my other gripes.