Thoughts on Codemania Conversations
The Codemania conference was on Friday 1 April. The following Saturday and Sunday was the Codemania Conversations unconference, held at the top secret location of the Waitakere Estate — a small conference venue / hotel hidden in bush to the west of Auckland city.
I was whipped into the bush by David White and his speedy, low-down Lotus:
It was great to be nestled away with 50 conference speakers and attendees the day after a conference. We were able to continue conversations that were ignited by the talks, and in a conducive environment for discussion rather than a shouty, sweaty bar.
In particular I enjoyed the dive into Sarah Mei’s (@sarahmei) talk “Factory, Workshop, Stage”. The attendees discussed the “Stage” metaphor for software development and whether it resonated — immediate feedback for Sarah from a group of 30ish people who were there the previous day. I imagine it was great input to her, and it looks like she might be developing this talk topic into a theory on teamwork:
Sarah Mei — @sarahmei
8:24 PM — 2 Apr 2016Spending the last few hours of #codemania thinking one level up from where I have been recently:
For me that was the beauty of Codemania Conversations — the opportunity to talk to speakers and give them feedback, and to understand the motivation and thoughts behind their talk.
I was also lucky enough to speak to almost all of the other speakers about their topics, ask questions, and hear some of their more personal, uncensored thoughts on their topics.
Another part of Conversations that was great was of course being able to spend time with the other attendees. There were only 50 of us, so it was possible to actually speak to every person individually.
This was really outside my comfort zone — standing in a room full of strangers, my impulse is to gravitate towards the corner, or a person that I already know. However, I did manage to speak to many of the attendees, even if only for a brief time. There was a great depth of talent in the room(s), and the attendees brought their own insights to each of the unconference sessions during the two days.
Stand-out unconference sessions for me were:
- Imposter Syndrome: A discussion lead by Morris Nye (@mossnz on twitter), where we talked about our own insecurities, and tips for trying to help others overcome their own.
- Learning Just Culture: A session lead by the folk from Pushpay where they talked about their culture of Blamelessness, and started a discussion and took our questions on how to implement in our own organisations.
- Security & Hackers: This was a session I lead, where we discussed stories of security incidents worldwide, hacker culture and responsible disclosure.
I might write more about these and other sessions as I have a chance to reflect on them.
I hope that there is another unconference next year after Codemania — it was a lot of fun, and I got to interact and learn in a way that I don’t typically do it. I enjoyed myself!
