Note from Chris Webber: I wasn't able to make it to this year's PyCon due to wrapping up the crowdfunding campaign. However, Deb went, and was able to write this nice recap below. If you get a chance though, I encourage you to check out our campaign page... we are right at the end of the campaign and could really use your help to end it in style!
It was really awesome to catch up with people and talk with them about Python and community-building and MediaGoblin at the recent PyCon in Montreal. It finished so recently that some folks may even still be sprinting.
I saw a super-useful talk on turning your computer into a server that mentioned MediaGoblin as one of the reasons that you would want to do that. This talk is pretty great in that the target audience is the person who is pretty new to managing hardware. If that sounds like you (because it's definitely me) then I urge you to check it out. (Thanks Asheesh and Karen!)
The other talk I really enjoyed was one about Technical on-boarding, training and mentoring which went deep on how to bring new people in to a technical role. There were some things that we already do here with both our technical and non-technical people, but they made a great point about quickly getting new-ish people to help even newer people. The presenters, Kate Heddleston and Nicole Zuckerman, provided a link for more materials that you may also want to take a look at on their git repository.
It was truly excellent to hang with the crew from the Rochester Institute of Technology. I found out that some of the students there are using MediaGoblin to host stuff and knew all about our work. Plus, the MAGIC folks had some pretty big news of their own; RIT is going to be offering a minor in FOSS. That is truly a game-changer! So exciting!
I met some great new people who were interested in our larger work, our SpinachCon work and also people who just like goblin stickers or ASCII art. I gave away loads of stickers, learned some stuff, chatted with folks about legal issues, found my new favorite band and caught a cold on the way home. I'm looking forward to attending PyCon again next year and hopefully, we'll be able to host a MediaGoblin sprint! The PyCon Organizers did an absolutely fantastic job -- thank you!!
