mca blog

i really enjoyed this weekend's RESTFest. it was a great time to learn, have fun, and get lots of cool feedback. and i've got a lot of items in my "cool things to check out soon" list! it will take me some time to work through all my notes and follow up on several important items related to this weekend, but here are my initial - off the cuff - thoughts on the experience.

RESTFest impressions

Greenville, SC is a nice town.

i had no idea on what to expect from Greenville, SC since i'd never visited the state. the town is very nice; tree-lined downtown, free wi-fi throughout the entire downtown area, local coffee shops host lots of impromptu in-person and virtual meetings throughout the day, etc. i could get used to this!

Greenville NEXT Center is a great place to host an event

we had open high-speed wi-fi (we streamed vids easily) and free access to the facilities throughout the two-day event. the location offers very flexible room arrangements, lots of nooks for ad-hoc meetings, special "green-glass" on hallway walls where we could use dry-erase marker right on the walls, and much more.

workshop experience as very helpful

i was lucky enough to be able to present a full day workshop on hypermedia on friday. it was a very informal, hands-on event and i got lots of very valuable feedback from the attendees. thanks to their feedback i know some of the material works very well. i also know how i can improve sections to make it more accessible for everyone.

keynote was awesome

Glenn Block delivered a great keynote on some very cool future HTTP features for the .NET runtime. we got to see what Microsoft is thinking about, what they are planning, and how they are going about it. Glenn was incredibly open and probing w/ his questions and solicited some great feedback throughout his stay at the event. very cool.

the Saturday sessions where fantastic

we had a mix of Extended Talks and FiveInFive talks. and it was great. the extended sessions showed off some very cool stuff. and the FiveInFive talks were a big win, IMO. it was a great "fire hose" of ideas and examples that still has my head swimming.

the RESTFest wiki will continue to be a great resource

so much cool stuff was generated in such as short amount of time, i couldn't keep track of it all. thankfully, the RESTFest wiki is a great resource for refreshing my brain. everyone has a profile page that contains personal details, talk abstracts and links to slides and videos. i'll be checking back here a lot over the next several weeks.

the sponsors have been very supportive

As a new, very focused, small event, we expected to have a difficult time engaging with sponsors who matter to our attendees. that turned out to be wrong. we found several very generous sponsors who went out of their way to provide materials and direct support that helped make this event a big success. more than once during the weekend, attendees commented to me that they appreciated the sponsors' support, too. it's been a great experience.

the attendees have been very supportive, too

REST Fest was truely international this year w/ attendees from several locations in Europe and North America. and that's been great. because of the event was organized around the notion of "everyone gets to talk and everyone gets to listen" the weekend was a success because of the commitment from the attendees. eveyone brought their "A" game. great talks, excellent feedback, vitial engagement and socializing all led to a fantastic experience throughout the weekend.

wow. just. wow

it's not like me to "gush" but this weekend was just amazing. so much to review over the coming days. so many cool people to keep in touch with. so may new things to experiment with, too. it'll take me some time to come back up for air, but i can tell, already....

i can't wait to do it again