Last week, I attended the PHP Community Conference , it was a chance to connect, and re-connect with a lot of people I interact with on a daily basis on IRC, Twitter, and mailing lists.
The conference was organized by Lisa Denlinger, Ben Ramsey, and Nicholas Sloan, with a supporting cast that included the Cake PHP guys, Tropo, and Red Ventures.
The technical stuff I learnt, can be found on slides, and blog posts, so I’m going to focus on the non tangible things.
1. Lorna Jane is an awesome speaker, if you ever get a chance to attend her a presentation by her, do it. Not only will you learn a lot about whatever subject she’s decided to speak to you about, you’ll also learn how to speak. Her ability to break the problem down, and explain things step by step, are commendable. If you ever want to give a talk, especially to a technical audience, listen to her.
2. Any company thinking of competing with what the folks have going on at Orchestra.io , better step up. If this was a battle, raising money, and getting mentioned on Techcrunch just means you’ve bought the same equipment they’ve been using for years, now you need to learn how to use it.. you’re much further behind than you think you are. Helgi s talk on Frontend Caching was excellent, but once again, his ability to explain the reasons behind his decisions and recommendations, makes him and his team a very dangerous combination. You’re combining raw, superior technical talent, with excellent execution and business acumen.
3. I learnt how easy it is to profile your applications during Paul Reinheimmers talk, but more so, his story about WonderProxy, and his comments about wanting to make the web better, hit home the most. His passion for WonderProxy was evident, but the fact that he’s so proud of the 50 customers he’s helping, is telling. The key here, is that he’s happy to be able to provide a service that helps his niche customers, not that he’s been able to turn a profitable business. Profits come and go, the ability to positively impact the life of someone, is rare.
There were many other things I learnt about the community, the people, and also Nashville, but these were personal highlights, things that are unique to every attendee, and can’t be gleaned from watching slides on the net.
Speaking of, if you’re interested in watching the slides, you’ll find them on Join.in
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