Extra-curricular in Budapest
As I said earlier, the thing that I really enjoyed about the Budapest conference was getting to meet people with similar and complimentary interests to mine. There’s something quite nerve-racking about getting on a plane to another country to attend a three-day conference on your own, especially if you’re not very keen on flying. But I was lucky to spot Martin Whelton, from Blogging4Merton at the airport, to check in at the same time as Paul Evans from Never Trust a Hippy, and to sit down at the opening session near Ellie from UKvillages, so I got over the away from home nerves pretty quickly.
Later on, at the traditional Hungarian dinner, with very loud jazz, I got talking to Tom Steinberg from MySociety, Catherine Howe from public-i, Michael Cross from the Guardian and Shane McCracken from Gallomanor.
Here we are enjoying the hospitality of the sponsors…
I think this was one of those conferences where the conversations you have in the bar and at the dinner table are more illuminating than the formal conference. Certainly, everyone seemed to be trying to connect people who didn’t know one another but ought to - I lost track of the times that I was grabbed with the words “Antonia, you’ve just got to meet…” And I’m glad, as despite being a pretty confident sort, not being so connected with this world it would have been pretty easy to stay quiet and not get as as much out of it as I did.
I think this was one of those conferences where the conversations you have in the bar and at the dinner table are more illuminating than the formal conference.
I think that’s true but it shouldn’t be taken as a criticism of the conference — the key thing with internet-related conferences is that these people are often able to read/take part etc in this sort of thing online — the reason for a conference is just for the interaction afterwards.
That said, the conference speakers were very interesting and, in many cases, people that you wouldn’t necessarily come across in forums etc.