I have just had the privilege of being a part of Techorama in Mechelen in Belgium. It is a conference organized by three guys, and attracts some of the best speakers in the developer community. Oh, and I was there too.
It is two days of amazing content, great food, 1000 attendees, interesting sponsors and lots and lots of networking. And it all takes place in a movie theatre, or rather all the cinemas of the Utopolis theater. It is a crazy cool venue, and when you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Where are there rooms that are made solely for image projection and have all the seats (very comfortable seats as well) face a single direction as well as having seating capacity in the 100s: a movie theatre. In the 7 years I have been involved in DDD Melbourne it has never occurred to us to use a movie theatre.
I did two talks, one on Day 1 and one on Day 2. My first talk was on the magical HoloLens, which I wrote about a couple of days ago. The second talk was my Adaptive UX talk, which I have done a few times before, but this time flowed beautifully. It is an introduction to the Windows 10 Universal App world, and focuses on the options you have to create a user interface that works on devices from mobile to HoloLens to Xbox. I love giving the talk because the tools are so powerful, yet simple.
I also attended a talk of fear and how to deal with fear by my new good mate Jeff Blankenburg, and it was amazing. My favourite quote was that “Fear is a Liar!” and “Fear is what is between where you are and what you want”. If you get a chance to attend Jeff’s talk, do it. It is awesome.
Most of all though I was inspired to do more and do better through the many conversations I had with fellow speakers and attendees. When 1000 people in a single community come together the talk is informed, friendly and often loud. I love talking to all of the people at the event and I get so many ideas for talks, projects and courses that I go away fulfilled.