At 06:59 PM 7/21/00 +0000, you wrote:
>Gunther Birznieks wrote:
> >
><snippage> >
> >
> > >Thoughts from anyone ?
> >
> > Yeah, you're being pretty cheap. :)
> >
> > Well, I'm sort of kidding here. But the reality is that a conference offers
> > a lot -- not just knowledge (then just attend a tutorial locally at Sun or
> > someplace) but networking. The coordination of a conference is a huge task.
> >
> > Anyway, most conferences do have a free vendor expo, but I don't think that
> > it's nearly as good as going to a whole conference. If you really want to
> > attend a conference for "free", why don't you contribute back to the
> > community that has been helping you make a living and give a talk?
>
>Would love to - but I regard myself as in the "no-longer a newbie, but
>not an
>expert" stage, and certainly not in the same league as the poeple whom
>are
>already giving talks.
Well, I think that high-faluting talks on the X-Factor of multithreaded
Perl and how Objects can instantiate .3% quicker are moderately useful at
conferences, but I think based on your posts here, you should at the very
least consider doing case study talks (eg the reasoning behind your IPC
Template system is very interesting).
At most conferences, I think you'll also find there is usually a talk for
everyone from tech to business (it's not all tech). And different levels of
tech talks.
Anyway, even if you find yourself ending up not doing a talk on the topic
you submit, you might be able to turn it into an article. Articles and the
like are surely useful to your CV as a consultant? And of course, you
usually get paid for an article which would pay some of the conference fee
(article pay isn't quite as high as a conference fee usually though).
It is likely too late to do a talk submission and preparation for ApacheCon
Europe, but it's not too late to start thinking about submitting something
for next year for a conference you might want to attend whether it is
ApacheCon or Oreilly PerlCon, YAPC, or whatnot.
Anyway, good luck with whatever you decide.
Later,
Gunther
