Whee! My feet might not forgive me, but it was a great three days.

Some post-CON notes:

  • We need to talk OSU into paying for some session passes. The social networking on the exhibit floor and in the halls was invaluable, but there were a bunch of sessions many of us at the OSL would have greatly benefitted from attending.
  • I will exact my revenge on a certain Maintain developer for sandbagging me with the OSTG guy and his camera.
  • The tan OSU shirts … I was a bit worried about them at first, but they really worked out well. They were really easy to spot on the exhibit floor. It highlighted our strong presence and it made it easy to direct interested parties to the right person even if that person was out wandering the floor.
  • I need to figure out what it is about a 3 foot tall inflatable Tux that makes him so irresistable. That little bird scored so much schwag (on the second day when most booths were all cleaned out) that he needed help from a friendly neighbor booth babe (!!!) to stand up. That’s some serious charisma, there. (Thanks to Fred for the pics!)
  • Note to self: bring five times as many business cards next time. I ran out halfway through the first day. Not a good thing.
  • Schedule in a break for a nap sometime mid-afternoon. It sucks to be too tired to enjoy the parties.
  • Toys for kids == prime schwag. I lost count how many times someone said, “My kids will love this” or “Nah, my kids don’t need a coaster.” Carabiners were OK, but something really toy-like would be better for next year. The super-ball with the blinking LEDs in it was a good one.
  • More t-shirts. We ran out way too fast. Maybe hold some for the second day.
  • Kees’ Wireless Wall of Worry was a great idea. Ironically, I think the horribly-congested and oversaturated wireless network cut down on the number of hits we got for unencrypted logins because a lot of people simply couldn’t get connected. I think we should make it more prominent next year, though.