Notes:

• Great attendance, easily 400+
• Lunch was smooth this year due to changing to boxed lunches
• Rooms were in 2 different buildings. Sometimes you have to, but it always adds complexity
• Speaker gift was a ‘survival kit’s with lots of useful bits including a USB C to HDMI/DVI/VGA (similar to this) and another with with mini displayport to HDMI/VGA (similar to this). Those adapters are a smart gift!
• Speaker shift was a very nice fishing shirt (which I prefer over polo, but not as much as a Hawaiian, and I get not everyone shares my preferences).
• I did a presentation on devops for the dba again, made some more notes towards a part 2 that I may write. Got better than usual feedback, always a good thing to help improve for next time.
• Volunteers did a fantastic job, even checking that the projector focus was sharp (my presentation was in the first hour of the day)
• The afternoon ice cream break was good, but the logistics failed. One enthusiastic vendor rep dipping ice cream made for a slow and single threaded line with easily 300+ in line. I’d guess it took 45 minutes plus, but everyone got ice cream. Organizers everywhere, a note that logistics always matters and you have to work that out with vendors and/or be prepared to jump in to help if it goes wrong. If you want to do some creative thinking, imagine that you have 4 big cartons of ice cream and 4 scoops…what do you do (Speed!)
• There was a SQL Clinic set up, but I don’t think it publicized well/early enough, but it’s an idea I want to think on for Orlando

Presenting also reminded me that I’m out of balance, not using a lot of skills that my current work doesn’t really need. Easy to say, harder to fix!