Running in parallel

After conference drinks

Last week was busy but great fun! On Monday we held our first conference then Tuesday – Thursday was spent at ALT-C.

The first Curverider event was a success – it was excellent to hear more about some of the different projects kicking off using Elgg and meet people who I have been in touch with online but never met.

In fact, that was the theme of the week – I met so many individuals for the first time and in every case things turned out even better than I could have hoped for, plenty of beer was drunk and good brainstorming sessions had.

While technology is great, and has been instrumental to the work on Elgg, you really can’t ever replace face-to-face interaction.

A slight issue for concern was raised by Ewan McIntosh when he asked about Elgg’s marketing – Elgg does not seem to be on the radar in Scotland, this is a shame seeing as it all started here. What he raised was a valid point – Ben and I need to do more to raise the profile of Elgg, this is not something we are very good at but we need to learn, fast!

Still, we are looking forward to working with Ewan, Nova et al to try and raise awareness of local projects and technologies, Elgg included.

A special mention is due to Kevin Jardine who wowed everyone with his excellent talk ‘Mystery of the missing password’ – it was inspired stuff and bodes well for future developments.

You can get most of the presentations from the Curverider event here – we will be posting video of all the sessions soon.

ALT-C was good this year, apart from my usual bumbling presentation, I enjoyed the event. Again, it was nice to meet people face-to-face that I had only previously chatted to online.

It felt like a slight turning in the tide – this was one of the first events I have been to where people started to really see tools, like Elgg, as viable. Could be interesting times ahead.

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Photos

First photo: sitting outside the Peartree pub in Edinburgh post conference.

Second photo: the conversation moved inside the pub a little later on

Third photo: hanging out with Chris Sessums after the ALT-C event.