Øredev 2013: Resetting the Bar

If you have ever attended a professional conference, one of the most common things you hear goes something like this:
"Oh, I don’t actually get much out of the sessions. I really just attend to network. The most important part of these things is what happens in the hallways in between sessions."

In fact, this sentiment was one of the main things that led Harrison Owen to start Open Space  as a more (less) formal way of holding a conference.

One reason professionals often attend conferences is for self-validation. Being surrounded for a few days by peers who share the same knowledge base you do and attending sessions that confirm that you all do in fact know the things you need to know can be very reassuring.

If you reach the stage where that becomes boring, you, like many will bail on the sessions and spend time in the hallway chatting with your colleagues. This is the portion most people say they find most valuable. It is a great way to extend your network, check in with others on your ideas and ensure that your face and name are a recognized entity in your professional community.

The question is, is this really the best that professional conferences have to offer?

This fall I attended two events that changed the way I look at conferences. The first was DPM 2013, which I’ve already written about here. It exposed me to a segment of professionals in the PM field who are working towards what may become a new way of approaching work. It includes aspects of agile and traditional pm, but is really neither of those things.

This November, I had the good fortune to be able to present at Øredev 2013 and this is the event that has had the most significant impact on how I view conferences now. This was my 3rd time attending Øredev. It is always enriching and challenging, but this time, I found myself very reluctant to miss any of the session. Each talk I attended introduced me to a new batch of ideas, concepts and ways of working that were unfamiliar to me. Each speaker I watched present, challenged some assumptions or practices I hadn’t previously thought to question. As someone who was firmly in the “It all happens in the hallways” camp, this was a new experience for me. I was more concerned about missing something my brain needed than I was about hanging out in the halls networking. Any decent conference will offer an attendee a chance to learn something, but what makes Øredev stand out is that it requires something more than information consumption.

The best way to sum it up may be by paraphrasing a conversation I had with another attendee at Øredev following the "Tekhnasthai" keynote given by Anna Beatrice Scott. He said:

"As I was watching her and listening to her, I found myself becoming increasingly frustrated and angry. Then I realized that what was making me frustrated and angry was not her, or her message, it was that she was was challenging my beliefs about work and how to approach it."

IMHO, this is the type of bar against which conferences planners should be measuring themselves if their events are going to retain value going forward. And as attendees, we should use the same bar. Going to conferences where we can have our assumptions validated or where we can be passively fed is not enough. In order to grow the profession and grow in our practice of it, we should always be seeking out events that will push and challenge us and leaning into the scary bits.

Lessons from the Yurt Part 2 - Interview with Kathy Compton

Part 2 of my interview with Kathy Compton from Panda Transport

Lessons From The Yurt  - An Interview with Kathy Compton from Panda Transport

This is one of my all time favorite interviews. Last fall I had the great fortune to meet Kathy Compton and Theirry Holoweck from Panda Transport at the Øredev 2010 conference. One of the really unique things about Panda Transport is that this two person band exists 1/2 in the US and 1/2 in France. In talking to them I realized that those of us who struggle with offshore have a lot to learn from the music world. Kathy has focuses in using vocal techniques and body language as ways  of making herself a more effective performer - to me, this ties directly back to a PMs ability to utilize body language, emotional intelligence, etc. to be more effective in our jobs.

This part one of the interview. Part 2 will be posted in a week or so.

ProjectPotion 18 - Dave Goes to Øredev

Øredev 2010 Wrap Up

Someone should give Michael Tiberg a cape!

I’m just back from Øredev 2010 and it was awesome! I am very fortunate in that I have the opportunity to attend and speak at a lot of conferences but none of them are like Øredev.

For the unfamiliar, Øredev is held each fall in Malmo, Sweden. It is put on by Jayway and organized by Michael Tiberg and Emily Holweck (who should also get a cape). This year they drew over 1,000 attendees from all over the world. The primary focus of the conference is development, but the topics addressed cover such a wide range that there is never a moment when you can’t find something that will spark your interest.

The conference kicked off with a Keynote called Mission Critical Agility by Dr. Jeff Norris from NASA. He gave a great presentation on innovation, failure and how unlikely events drive success. It was very inspiring and included some fascinating anecdotes about Alexander Graham Bell, as well as some very cool ARToolKit material about the moon landing. (There is no way I could explain ARToolKit and do it justice, but here is a random YouTube video that will help: http://bit.ly/41Wg0x).

The theme this year was Get Real and the tracks included Java, .NET, Smart Phones, Architecture, Cloud and nosql, Patterns, Agile, Web Development, Social Media, Collaboration, Realizing business ideas, Software Craftsmanship and, the conference’s secret weapon: Xtra. The speakers are encouraged to make their presentations as challenging as possible, so there is rarely a session that doesn’t make you feel like you’re watching a TED video. (And in fact, they taped every session and they will be posted in a few days.)

The Xtra track was an experiment this year and I really hope other conferences start to include tracks like this. Along with the sessions about HTML5, Java Provisioning in the Cloud and Agile Release Planning, the Xtra track had sessions on Understanding hypnosis, the lifecycle of a coffee bean as it makes it’s way into your cup, MIDI, Photography and using your voice and body to become a more effective speaker. While these topics may not seem to fit with the rest of the conference, they provided a balance I’ve not seen before and it made an awesome conference even better. The technical talks I attended challenged me from an intellectual perspective and I can definitely say that being asked to sing part of a human chord in Kathy Compton’s session “Music: the language of the eternal kinderkind” definitely put me out of my comfort zone – but in a good way.

I’ll post an update when the videos are live. If you missed it this year, you may want to start planning to make the trip next year. It is a truly unique thing.