Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Lessons from NEXT2012 in Romania


I often see folks blogging about what they learned, were inspired by, or impressed them about attending an event. it is far less often when I see a headliner, or promoted presenter blog about the lessons they learned or what inspired or impressed them after the event. I've often wondered why that is.

For me, it has a lot to do with needing to quickly shift gears upon completing an event to catch-up on all the things that I put off to prepare for the event, figure out what immediate stuff landed in my inbox while I was ignoring it, and to follow-up on leads, lessons, inspirations and curiosities from the event itself.

Well, I'm going to make a concerted effort to do better about posting my lessons from events, starting with NEXT2012, hosted by SoftVision, held in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Oct. 26-27
So, what were my take-aways from NEXT2012?

  • I'm *really* excited about how I'm now organizing and packaging my performance-related materials (more on that in a separate post).
  • SoftVision did a fantastic job organizing and handling logistics.
  • I am seriously impressed with the people I interacted with on both a professional and technical level.
  • Those same people are social, collaborative, friendly and are able to enjoy their work and create enjoyable work environments while being professionally and technically impressive.
  • Romania (as well as several surrounding areas not widely considered "software/technical powerhouses") is an emerging market worth watching.