Awesome awesome awesome! This phrase describes DevDay 2012 perfectly! Sessions conducted by Scott Hanselman, Greg Young, Sebastien Lambla, Mark Rendle, Martin Mazur, Rob Ashton and Antek Piechnik at this conference were just amazing! Great balance between technical and non-technical information. I have expected some level but seeing (for example) Scott Hanselman sharing his secrets of sharpening the saw was a nice surprise.
Check-in The conference started at 9 AM in newly build huge polish AGH building. I’ve arrived a few minutes before 9 and had not that much time socialize before the first session. In the “conference pack” there was a nice T-shirt with DevDay logo on it, notebook, ABB company brochure and a map with a marked track to the after party pub. The T-shirt was kind of special because on the back there was empty space for expressions. Everyone could write or draw anything he wanted to. That was impressive!
Session As I mentioned at the beginning the sessions were pretty impressive. Well knows speakers from all over the world have been invited and gave very good, high-level sessions! I will note describe sessions one by one here, but I have in mind sessions from NDC, Oredev and can compare them to what I saw here. Of course, if you are in IT sector for a while you most probably have heard of most of the topics already, but it is always good to compare your point of view with other, good specialists.
Coffee breaks & Lunch Highest level. Organisers thought even about vegetarians (I don’t remember seeing that on any other conference so far.)!
Social That was the part I was waiting for at most! Socialize with other developers in our country. I meet friends from Lodz, Warszawa and Wroclaw. People didn’t change that much. We all just get bit older, unfortunately. It was nice to meet in person people who you know only from the virtual world. I also meet new developers and collected new contacts :)
AfterParty Unfortunately, because of a headache, I could not attend :(
Summary The only company that organized DevDay 2012 was ABB and all attendees could socialize during breaks instead of fall into recruitment firms. ABB itself didn’t run an advertisement session but has acted as a host. For me, this was a very good and sensitive kind of advertising ABB.
Resources DevDay 2012 Facebook page
Well done ABB! Well done! :)