Laracon is BIG. I mean, HUGE.
4th Laracon - and this year 650 attendees, are you kidding me? And the venue was a really big ex-factory building with a lot of space, felt impressive. And huge thanks to the organizers - they did amazing job, kudos to Shawn McCool and his team.And in terms of content - two days, two tracks and also un-conference room (which I will talk later). I'm really happy about Laravel community grown into such a massive crowd. There were people from all over Europe - Belgium, France, Germany, UK, Slovenia, Serbia, Sweden, Denmark, Lithuania, Portugal etc. Also a team USA was here with Taylor as a "captain". What's also really cool is networking process - it was extremely active and everyone was friendly. I could come to any person or people and join the conversation, meet new Laravel fans, exchange tips, talk about my LaravelDaily (people recognize me, wow!) and just have fun. Including after-conference hours with beer.Always amazed at the venues @ShawnMcCool manages to find for #LaraconEU pic.twitter.com/OfCXocj0wV
— Rafael Dohms (@rdohms) August 23, 2016
Perhaps this networking was even more pleasant and useful than the actual conference talks. Speaking of which...Day #1 #LaraconEU2016 #LaraconEU afterparty. @DailyLaravel @freekmurze pic.twitter.com/6U9Y3p9sFs
— Justin (@justutiz) August 23, 2016
Content: bad parts
Ok, there's good and bad side. I'll start with bad. I didn't pay such close attention to the Laracons earlier and maybe it is intentional, but there were a lot of non-Laravel related content. Too much, I think. Take a look at these topics:- Bringing User Stories To Life
- No Excuse User Research
- Please Understand Me (about devs and managers)
- Project Utopia (about successful project management)
- How To Effectively Grow A Development Team
Content: good parts
Now, good thing: some people were superstars with delivering WOW emotions to the crowd. You can read some comments on Joind.in page for Laracon EU, but I would point out these heroes:- Taylor Otwell (surprise, surprise): it's not only about what he's presenting, it's about how he's doing it. Live-coding on the stage, clear explanations of things, well-structured presentation. Superb.
- Adam Wathan: while Taylor opened the conference, Adam was the last to speak. And boy, he delivered - in same style: live-coding, building the tension with every slide, getting huge round of applause.
- Freek van der Herten: another superstar blogger at Murze.be and a part of Spatie team - he presented their own Laravel Backup package, but in such a way that it was an overview of all backup solutions that are on the market. Calm voice tone, really clear message.
I've decided to present my own story of switching from a developer to a manager of a team - here's how it looked: And here are my presentation slides:Come to listen to my story at 16:00 at unconference #LaraconEU - and other presenters as well! pic.twitter.com/GPvVXjBomG
— Povilas Korop (@PovilasKorop) August 23, 2016
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