All Things Open - Day 0 - Volunteering

I am excited about the second All Things Open this week in Raleigh North Carolina.    It is a quick drive down I40 with the potential to "open up" a world of possibilities.     Last year was well worth the investment of time.    This conference is not directly related to my current job, so it provides freedom to explore.   And when you explore you find things you did not even know you didn't know.  

This year I am going into this with the same wide eyed enthusiasm.   No agenda except to listen with new ears.    

The conference starts tomorrow but volunteer training brought me down to Raleigh.   Todd Lewis and his crew are passionate about their work including this conference.   They have a genuine desire to improve the IT community and be pleasant hosts.   #ATO2014

While in Raleigh, I decided to stay for the Open Source Lightening Talks from OpenSource.com.   While I met charming folks such as Alex and John from NC State, Amy from Atlanta, Kevin Sonny from Pittsboro and many others, I need a much better way to get contact information.  I hate meeting someone for only one day.    It was good seeing Robin, Dirk, Pat and Steve from IBM.

Here are some take aways from the various lightning talks:

• Jen Wike +Jen Wike Huger - Building a premier storytelling platform on open source -
  Stories matter, not just in marketing a product, but in promoting open source projects. 
• Scott Nesbitt @ScottWNesbitt - Easing into open source -
  Clever use of pictures to tell a story on making open source approachable.  Really just about being approachable.   
• Brian Proffitt - Why Is everyone hating on Operating Systems?
  Now that we have Docker, we don't need the OS --- WOAH says Brian.  Containers are awesome but new.   It is growing, sprawling, and leaking.
  (Note to self: put your twitter id on every slide)
• Vincent Batts - +vbatts Docker in 5 minutes
  What I now think Docker is: namespacing, conflicting runtimes ("Docker Run" in Fedora), Port Mapping (have all your HTTP service running on a port),   Ops-to-Dev dependencies, Dev-to-Ops dependencies. reproducible from various deployments.  
  (Note to self: what is Lxc?) 
• Michael DeHaan - Why Ansible wants to make your IT infrastructure boring
  Great talk that made me want to earn more about Ansible to make Admin boring.   Pushing code to production (EC Load balancing, ...) Teach your IT Processes to Self Destruct , Smart Rolling Updates.  https://galaxy.ansible.com/
  (Note: I thought Vincent was my favorite but Michael spoke to my daily pain!)   
• Rikki Endsley - Social media for slackers
  Curate content (tough), make sure it is re-tweetable, don't overdue hash tags, don't use PR talk, don't invest in facebook, give credit, avoid scandal, Naughty links in well meaning tweets, measure success(Note: Ironic that the talk on social media does not have their hashtag or twitter account) 
• Luis Ibanez - Unmanagement and Unleadership
  Channeling great leaders of all times. 
• Remy DeCausemaker aka "RemyD" @Remy_D - The first FOSS Minor at RIT
  Ok, that is too cool!   A minor in Free Open Source Software!   Now I know IT will change the world for the better.   WOW!   5 minutes later!
  (Note: Remy has the coolest vitae so far.  Lots of great titles and experience.) 
• Charlie Reisinger - @charlie3 - Open Source Schools: More Soup, Less Nuts
  Jason recommends Charlie's TED Talk.   Can't go wrong with Jason's recommendation.
  Tablets can't run a LAMP stack and thus handcuffing them from really learning computing.  

Fun night!   Looking forward to day 1 of All Things Open 

-G