Foresight 20/20 Conference Recap
The Foresight 20/20 conference wrapped up today in Raleigh, North Carolina.
With 29 registered conference attendees, I would estimate 25 or 26 showed up over the course of two days, which is fantastic attendance. Conferences like these are not only great at building relationships as you finally meet people face to face you’ve spoken to forever in IRC, but also add an energy that only comes from being in the same room with your fellow project members.
Friday night was fairly informal as people arrived, all with different flight times. Most of the out of towners, including myself, had dinner at a Thai restaurant, then headed to the Flying Saucer in downtown Raleigh, just down the road from North Carolina State University. The Flying Saucer is a huge bar with a nice outdoor patio, and stocks over 100 different kinds of beer. You name it they probably have it (except for Pabst Blue Ribbon, which Ryan did try to order at one point). They also have a club you can join with a kiosk that helps you go on a journey of trying all the beers, with varying prizes the more you drink over time.
Saturday was the first day of the conference, and was kicked off by Ken VanDine giving his “State of the Vision” (his title!) address on the current state of Foresight, how we’re different, and where we’re headed. This was one of the few sessions actually recorded on a camcorder, so we’ll need to find a volunteer to edit and post the video. This was followed by Ken and Antonio sharing their goals for Foresight’s roadmap.
Saturday was the fairly structured day, with tracks including Community building, Development Process, Marketing, and QA Process. Each session was assigned a task in JIRA, and the meeting notes are available in JIRA. Over the next week, it’s my goal to write a post about each session, and recap what was discussed by project members.
Saturday evening we headed out for dinner as a large group, and back to the Flying Saucer for more beer.
Sunday was our unconference day, similar to a Barcamp. We kicked off the day with session recaps from Michael (Development Process), Paul Scott-Wilson (QA Process) and Kevin (Marketing). From there we quickly brainstormed what hackfests and sessions we’d like to see throughout the day, wrote them on a whiteboard and then each attendee put a tick mark next to the sessions he or she was interested in attending.
Over the course of the next week or so, it’s my goal to blog about the majority of the sessions and hackfests on Saturday and Sunday. These will include an overview of the session, goals, and action items to keep moving Foresight forward that were discussed. As mentioned above, each session was captured as an action item in JIRA, and I will link to the JIRA issue, and provide a recap.
Thanks again to everyone who came, the first Foresight 20/20 Conference was a blast, and I look forward to many more.
