Opening

• Venkat tried to start in 2020. Had .5 beta conference online.
• This is version 1.0
• Next year is 2.0 in Colorardo Springs Sept 29-Oct 2
• Random quote “Money doesn’t buy happiness but does grant leverage”

General notes

• This is the first time I’ve stayed in a hotel that a conference was at. (vs going for the day or staying at a neighboring hotel). I went for a swim between arriving and conference start. And then went down in my pool slippers (forgot to put on my sneakers). In California, people wear these outside, so good enough!
• Attention to detail was great and I like that the conference started with a request for feedback.
• First conference the Java Champion community used Linked In as a channel that I’ve been at. Haven’t used Linked In so frequently in my life! Once I found my password, it was fine.
• It was nice not having the sessions recorded. People were more open and you heard the talks differently. That said, someone missed the world premiere of my time management talk and asked where I’ve given it to see a recording. Alas, it’s not recorded anywhere

Monday

I flew in after the workshops but attended dinner and the evening sessions:

• Architecture.Next: 4 Trends toward better architecture
• Breaking AI

Tuesday

• Distributed consensus
• Avoiding rework
• How to say no without being a jerk
• Time Management – my talk so link to SpeakerDeck
• Custom GPTs
• GenAI Panel

Wednesday

• <missed two morning sessions to attend my team’s sprint planning>
• Reclaiming Agility
• <i did my session on the critical path game here>
• Improving LLM Results with RAG
• Hiring

Thursday

• <missed first morning session to attend a meeting>
• Kafka
• 7 Tech Trends
• Virtual Threads
• Project Amber
• Reading Code