GOSCON Countdown

GOSCON is only two days away and our months of preparation are finally paying off.

I’m really excited about GOSCON for a variety of reasons. For one, I think we’ve brought together a great group of speakers as well as attendees. This will be a great mix of 150+ people from 15 states and 3 countries to hear about open source in the public sector. I can’t believe the energy and excitement we’ve received leading up to this conference; so far it has completely exceeded our wildest expectations.

What I’m really excited about are the facilitated sessions. The facilitated sessions will be a couple of hours of focused discussions between like minded groups (say Corrections or Human Services) to really drill down on possible projects and then hopefully lay a roadmap for the execution of those projects. Taking cues from projects like Sakai and Kuali we hope to help these groups define projects and then get the ball rolling on them.

Most of all, I like conferences for the networking opportunities. I think GOSCON will be no different; its great to hear the speakers give their talks but its really great to connect with people who are doing the same things as you. It never hurts to have a person you can contact or a network to lean on in times of need.

More to follow here on GOSCON.