Øredev 2015 - third time's the charm

November 08, 2015

As I write this I am halfway into a dark Sunday evening in November. Yesterday I got home after Øredev 2015 and while everything is only starting to be processed I have at least had a little while to breath. My thoughts and feelings very much build upon those from last year, and that is a very good thing. Again, I was invited as a part of Kodsnack to do interviews with speakers. My goal to simply do even better remained in the intervening year, and so I headed off to the conferernce with a longer list of interviewees and - more importantly - quite a bit more research done ahead of each interview.

(See how I write "interview" all the time? That used to sound much too organized and formal to me. Now I am starting to feel comfortable applying the word to what I did.)

In the end, I did nine interviews (or eight and one chat more like a "classic" Kodsnack episode), four of which were on stage and on video. The videos are online already, the rest will appear as part of the podcast over time.

I am surprisingly happy with the way everything went, while I certainly have favourites I dare say I will feel comfortable hearing, editing and releasing all of the interviews over time.

Doing and preparing for interviews naturally ate quite severely into the time I had to spend on actual sessions. But conferences are so much about the people, so in many ways I feel I got an even better - and certainly very unique - conference experience this way. Not only did I get to have long conversations with people about subjects in which they are experts, the fact that I was interviewing also meant I had done a decent bit of research and preparation. Sure, preparation takes time, but the returns are so great that I wonder if I should try to prepare for all kinds of conferences as much. I was the lone representative from Kodsnack this year, which both added to any and all nervousness but also provided an even greater confidence and happiness boost when things went well. It was also a big reason I prepared as well as I did, so for personal growth and learning going alone was a clear win in every way.

Wrapping up for the moment, I had a fantastic time at Øredev and want to thank everyone who had any part in making it so great for me and everyone else. Participating in this way gave me so much more than a regular attendance would have. I am already feeling excited about next year, and any other next opportunity to do similar things.

Hopefully I will also be able to share and multiply all of these positive things with anyone who watches the videos or listens to the podcasts as they come out.

Thoughts are still sloshing around in each and every direction, continually being unpacked and processed. If you stand close to me you can probably hear the whirring and clicking of all the little gears turning in my head.

This will do for now though.