POSSCON 2010 in Columbia, SC

Palmetto Open Source Conference (POSSCON) 2010 is an experience like non other on the East Coast.  For years the West Coast has enjoyed close proximity and accessibility to many of the great minds that work in the Open Source (OS) software community.  Now for the first time, many of those great minds made the trek to the East Coast to enlighten us with their wisdom and experience.  This is truly a great event for the software community and those of us involved with open source software on the East Coast.  Plus this event helps illustrate a key part of effective networking.

POSSCON this year was a 3 day event with each day having a unique focus on open source software.  Day one involved government and business leaders talking about OS software.  The purpose was to educate and showcase how OS software is a justifiable resource to invest and foster within an organization.  Hosts and speakers included Randy Senn (CIO, SCANA), Dr. William Hogue (CIO, USC), and Khushru Tata (CIO, SC Technical College System).  Also of notoriety were Robert S. Cringley and John "Maddog" Hall.  Day two offered a developer and a educator track.  I was able to jump between the two tracks and learned interesting concepts and trends in open source in the education arena and new development areas.  In terms of development, Christopher Zorn from Collecta spoke about the power and versatility of XMPP (Jabber) for instant messaging applications.  I also got to hear Eric Evans from Rackspace talk about the open-source database platform Cassandra and where that project is going in the area of DB development.  Github was in attendance and I thoroughly enjoyed Chris Wanstrath's presentation and opinions of what you should do and how you should approach open source software development.  To round out my Friday, I attended the Moodle software presentation put on by Dee Appleby, director of E-Learning for the SC Dept. of Education, and other members of her staff.  The presentation enlightened me to the fact that the state of SC is embracing open source technology as a means to solve problems within the educational system.  All in all, Friday was a very informative day with many intelligent, knowledgeable speakers talking about all of the nuances of the open source community.

Saturday's portion of POSSCON was held at the Un. of SC Engineering Bldg and was a day filled with workshops instructed by the professionals that use the solutions every day.  The first workshop for me was the Introduction to Wordpress class taught by Hew Sutton from Automattic (host/run Wordpress.com).  I have taken a Wordpress class and wanted to see how my knowledge base fared when put up against an expert.  I am happy to report that I grasped the Wordpress concept well from my original class and actually had good insight and input for the instructor.  I was able to hold my own while discussing Wordpress concepts and new ideas with Hew.  After the Wordpress seminar, it was off to the Introduction to Drupal seminar conducted by Chrys Rynearson from SPAWAR Charleston.  I had heard of Drupal, but had not exposure so I was highly interested in this seminar.  Chrys said that Drupal was like Worpdress on steroids.  After going through the demonstration, I concur with that statement.  Chrys convinced me that the Harvester Solutions Website will be re-vamped in Drupal.  And, I am looking forward to discovering the power of Drupal for Website design.  Wrapping up Saturday afternoon, I attended the GoogleDocs presented by Mark Gunnels from Catamorphic Labs.  He presented all the basics of GoogleDocs and showed how GoogleDocs could be used as a possible MS Office replacement.  One of the greatest functions of GoogleDocs is the collaboration mechanisms that Google has put in place to make working with a group and a document much easier.  The portion that caught my attention was the ability to create Forms, embed them into almost anything, then have a spreadsheet generated as results from people filling out the form were submitted/collected.  I definitely saw the pros for using a GoogleDocs solution.  The entire day was workshops, but that was alright because all instructors were knowledgeable and passionate about the subject matter that they taught.  This made the day quite educational and a pleasure.

Overall, the POSSCON event was a total success in my eyes.  The event brought together many open source leaders with people on the East Coast that are engaged in open source software and initiatives every day.  Event coordinators said over the course of the 3 days that they want to grow the POSSCON event and be able to offer even more to members of the open source community.  I highly recommend attending next year if you are able.  For more information about POSSCON 2010 and finding out more about next years event, take a look at the http://posscon.org/ Website.

Follow Up with New People

I have been actively networking now for almost a year. When I say actively, I mean going out to meet people with the intention of branding myself and getting my name propagated through the local community.  I usually engage one to three people at an event with meaningful conversation.  Not just the "Hi, my name is..." spiel, but actually find out a little about that person and tell that person a little bit about you.  The next key step is to ask for their business card, not hard to do at all.  Example, "Can I get your card?" does the trick.  And, since I knew I was going to meet at least one to three people, I always remember to take my cards.  I tell people, "let's swap cards, it'll be fun."  The humor people like and it makes me stick out in their minds more than the other guy.

Now you have their pertinent information and other people know more about you and what you are doing.  Go another step and reinforce what "you" do to then again.  Send a personalized email to your new contact and mention some of the things that the two of you discussed in the initial meeting.  That will reinforce who you are and again reinforce what you do. (That is because you talked about what you do in some form or fashion when the two of you first met, right!?!)  Go another step and look for that new contact on LinkedIn.  Connect with them via LinkedIn because this is the social site for professionals.  When sending over that "join my network" invite be sure to include some sort of personalized message.  Mention something from the conversation at the initial meeting and DO NOT just send the generic statement.  Just sending the generic message shows you are not truly looking to meet and interact with other people, but trying to grow a "friend" list.  Be sincere and it will go a long way to win the hearts and affection of others.

Lastly, networking is an on-going project that can take several years to see benefit from.  Be patient and enjoy meeting new people.  Sharing ideas and having a sounding board for new ideas will benefit a career and a business to no end.