Attention, report!
Whoever finds all the "Easter eggs" first will get a boost in karma 😉
It seems quite inconvenient that flights from London arrive in Moscow at five in the morning. The same goes for flights from Amsterdam. Strangely enough, Swedish Airlines also operate on an inhumane schedule. Only passengers arriving from the star-spangled country may look a bit sleepy, but not because they had to take a plane for a 12-hour flight at 3 AM (they wouldn’t do that), but because those who travel to Russia from across the Atlantic tend to stock up on sleeping pills, peacefully snoozing throughout the flight.
However, our speakers simply cannot be regarded as weaklings: upon arriving in the first half of the day, no one chose to take a nap before a full day of the conference (in those moments, I sometimes feel like a caretaker in a well-known group), rather, everyone was filled with energy to explore the city a bit, see what was happening around. Luckily, the weather was truly wonderful, and the sun reflected off window panels, spilling onto the asphalt wherever it could. Phil didn’t miss the chance to capture this on his Instagram.
Last to arrive was Robert Neiman from Mozilla, who immediately declared that he brought a hockey stick with him and would seek revenge, and in response to my phone comment about the "little car following us," noted that in some world languages, "little car" is, no less no more than, a well-known machine gun. At that moment, I realized what awaited me ahead, but by Friday it became clear that this concerned all of us. Meanwhile, Robert did not cease his sarcastic jokes ("I’m joking with respect") and sharp comments for even a minute. Thus, by the end of this post, we prepared a special surprise for him — so that Moscow, the toaster, and our fun company would forever remain in his heart.
We have already introduced individually, so this time we will focus on them as a whole together with the audience, partners, and the after-party that remarkably harmoniously concluded a day of networking, new knowledge, insights, and I can only guess what else.
As you may have noticed, there were no issues this time with either the coffee or the toast. Let's hope everyone was satisfied, as stomachs are the most delicate and complex places of all, especially when it comes to developers. The guys eagerly devoured the sweet toasts before registration started and the crowd flooded into the hall.
A special thanks to the wonderful ladies who helped us with participant registration and everything else that required a woman's attention.
Finally, 10 o'clock struck. Just as our esteemed guests nearly choked on the toasts, they remembered it would be a good idea to test the compatibility of all the equipment before the spectacular show began. However, there were no issues at all. By the time we finished, we found ourselves standing on stage in front of what was already, practically, a full hall. Ralph exclaimed a meaningful American 'Wow!', Phil slowly backed away with a shift in his center of gravity towards his chair, Robert was finishing the last lines of code on his slides, and Jan... well, Jan was getting ready to go and say what he needed to say.
Sometimes I feel that Dutch people are impossible to change. In principle, all the other guests agreed with this, and here's the thing: Jan arrived in one shirt, bringing with him a laptop, its charger, a light jacket, and apparently, that's all. On all the days, whenever we stepped into a museum or some other common interest place, Jan openly referred to us as 'pensioners' and said that 'real' rest should be in a different format. However, we did show him that other format at the end of Friday, and it's safe to say that the young specialist from the esteemed Cloud9 was not disappointed.
And although Jan was originally scheduled to be last in the program, he was inspired by the opportunity to open the conference with the first presentation. Meanwhile, Phil, Ralph, and Robert were diligently typing away, adding and finishing up details during Jan's talk.
Phil immediately noted the quality of the equipment on site and was pleased that images were displayed on screens rather than projected. Apparently, this somewhat calmed him, and although Phil frequently travels for conference presentations, no one really knew what to expect from the audience. However, seeing the audience's reaction to Jan's presentations (whom the guys affectionately, yet seriously, called simply and succinctly "kid"), Phil was fully prepared to take the stage. With small lapel microphones attached, they looked more like participants in a comedy show, especially considering the number of jokes from Robert. Well, as I promised — we will get our turn back.
Since Phil works at a creative agency rather than a company focused solely on development, his presentation was more "humanitarian," and the slides even impressed me. However, I am sure that all our guests appreciated this format, as JavaScript is front-end, and the front-end is inextricably linked to what we see with our eyes when opening a web page, and Phil spoke about this — the first impression, and how not to spoil it. At least, that's how it seemed to us, if anything — please correct me.
Meanwhile, Ralph was a bit nervous about his presentation, while the audience was preparing for another break.
After briefly instructing Pasha Dovbush, who was speaking fourth, we went out for coffee and discussed the upcoming presentations, while also listening to the comments and wishes of the first speakers.
Although many had "scolded" Ralph for recounting the AmplifyJS documentation, I believe his presentation was interesting to many, as he came to talk about the in-house development within the company, not done for profit, but for the community. This is one of the reasons why the community should be quite grateful 😉
During Ralph's presentation, our first Russian-speaking speaker, Pavel Dobush from Badoo, was preparing to take the stage. We met with Pasha a few days before the conference to chat, and he left me with an indelible impression as a professional and, even more importantly, a productive optimist. Pasha grasped literally everything quickly, even though some things were not easy to understand at first, and ultimately, when he stepped on stage, he presented an interesting topic that deserved everyone's attention.
By the time Pasha was already answering questions from the audience, I felt considerable tension from where Robert was sitting. He finally finished rewriting his slides and was kindly smiling at me, which only added to my worries, given his unique personality.
I think what Robert showed us will stay in the minds of everyone who attended for a long time. Firstly, it’s not every day that you get the chance to see and communicate with a very experienced, intelligent, and interesting person from Mozilla, who is focused on evangelizing the entire platform (‘I went to a monastery in my childhood, that’s where I built my biceps’).
In principle, there’s not much to add here, and we won't show any photos of Robert since we only have one shot that truly deserves attention. Moreover, his slides won’t pass the strict censorship of our resource 🙂 If you attended the conference, rewatch the recording of the speech, and if you didn't, you can just take a look at , which will be enough.
And, in principle, it’s no surprise that many preferred lunch over solving puzzles posed by the girls from SuperJob, who raffled off three new iPads after lunch. We can only be happy for the winners and wish for such girls with such gifts to come to our conferences as often as possible 😉
After lunch, Shavkat Ainurin from News360 talked about their creation of a web version of their application. Here, I’d like to make a small note to all attendees: we know that you love foreign speakers, but that is no reason to treat our compatriots with less attention or respect.
If you're in doubt about this, try writing any report and reading it in front of unfamiliar people, say, near the office, without provoking a smile from at least one of them. After that, let us know in the comments how many attempts it took you to achieve this 🙂
Kostya Kichinsky from Microsoft came on stage a bit earlier because we were experiencing some difficulties establishing a connection with the Canadian office of Blackberry, where employees use firewall-protected laptops that essentially provide no external access to devices or information — partly because of this, we had to use Skype to hear Adam a bit later.
However, Kostya didn't waste any time, and it felt like his presentation was received very positively by the majority. He probably put something into the posters that he diligently scattered throughout the hall.
Finally, it was time for our remote presentations. It's a pity that we couldn't bring these two individuals to Moscow in the end — Blackberry's management changed the speaker to a higher-level one at the last moment, and Joe was denied a visa three times in a row without any objective reasons.
However, we're glad that the presentations were successful in the end. Next time, we'll be sending speakers via diplomatic mail.
Finally, after the main program of the event was over, we raffled off small prizes in the form of Yota 4G modems, although everyone was really just waiting for one thing — when the doors to the bar would finally open and the company Badoo (to whom we extend our immense gratitude for organizing such an afterparty for everyone) would let us into their celebration of life.
Finally — it happened.
Even we didn't have a clue until the very last moment what Badoo was organizing, but the result exceeded all expectations!
Both samovar devices, chess, games, and a hookah corner — everything was set up to melt the hearts of IT specialists, exhausted from the hours-long conference program. After some initial hesitation and standing around, everyone finally dispersed, and the real party began.
Thank you as well, Habr people and conference participants. Your opinions help us remain one of the most interesting events for IT professionals in Moscow, and we will strive to keep improving!
P.S. Finally, what we have all been waiting for since the beginning.
Come again!
Source: habr.com
