Well it's that time of the year again, and one of the highlights of my year. Open Source Developers Conference Australia - this year just up the road in Brisbane.
The drive up from Gold Coast pretty slow. It's been a while since I drove up in peak hour. Train is much faster, but we needed the car to get the last few kms to Bardon.
The venue is right in the bush near Mt-Cootha.... nice spot. Bit far from the pubs and civilisation, but I am warming to it.
I set up an OSIA stand for the day - we didn't actually have a stand, but I put up some posters to give a bit of visibility. Gave away a lot of badges that CustomTees did for us - saw a few people wearing them or attached to their lanyards which was good. Everyone really liked my polo shirt I was wearing - so hopefully I am going to get some more made and give one to each member. Lots of people knew about OSIA, lot's didn't - a few people were very interesting in joining - and I have to live up to my promise of activity this year now! Watch this space.
The opening Keynote on Volunteers by Karen Pauley was really really interesting. I sat next to Paul O'Keeffe and had a lot to think about there in relation to Barcamp, Legion of Tech and the various groups we run. I found what she said about leaders so true - there are a lot of groups that rely on 1 person, if that person stops, then the group usually stops. We need to future-proof our groups so that they are sustainable... a lot of good things happening, but we need to keep them going.
