Knowledge Brings Fear

EuroFoo

I was invited to Tim O'Reillys EuroFoo conference, taking place at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. Not really knowing what to expect, I arrived unfortunately only on saturday evening, missing nearly one complete day. (Due to work related stress, induced by a bunch of morons that do not realize what they are doing...)

Tim was so nice to pick me up at the Enschede train station, so after a quick detour to check in at the hotel, I arrived at the conference saturday early afternoon.

The whole EuroFoo thing was stunning. About 100 people were invited. Rop summarized the overall feeling on the participants very precisely: "The scary thing is that you need to explain things here about 0.7 times.". That said it all. I have never experienced a more intelligent, alert, skilled, friendly and knowledgeable crowd on a conference. The conference agenda was created on the first day within 15 minutes by people just grabbing a one-hour slot and announcing their talk on the schedule-board. Lightning Talks sessions (where people say something interesting for 5 minutes, not more) provided a very high density of content. I met so many interesting people in about one day that my head still whirls a bit.

After trying to help Tim to solve the problem of his lost car key (he has it back meanwhile), I am now in Amsterdam, probably staying here for two more days. Weather in the Netherlands is (as was to be expected, but shocking nonetheless) cold and rainy. I hope the next weeks in Berlin turn out to be better...