The new year typically spawns lots of “Best of …” and “What happened in …” articles and blog posts. It’s a time of year to reflect on the past 12 months. It’s time to look at the highlights, sometimes the lowlights, and hopefully lock a few of those nuggets away for future use. What I wasn’t expecting while rapidly devouring the 1000+ items in my RSS reader was one post that contained my name accrediting the initiation of a number of Australian BarCamps to me.
Now before you accuse me of blowing my own trumpet, I write this not because I want you to bow before me, rather because I wanted to share how that made me feel. It was great! By simply including that one paragraph in her post, Janet spurred me to get of my Christmas pudding and get BarCamp Melbourne 2008 back on track.
The truth is 2007 was a busy year for me. Most years are - I’m the type of person that can’t say no. After having co-authored a book, organised BarCamp Melbourne 1.0, bought and moved in to a new house, changed jobs* and possibly more that I can’t remember (now you can accuse me of blowing my own trumpet!), I was seriously considering postponing, or get someone to take over the organisation for, BarCampMelbourne 2.0.
* Truth be told, the job change was more of a relief than a burden. It’s great to leave a company that wants you to feel lucky for working in a chaotic environment under bad management with an internal IT department that has an agenda so huge you could swear it’s trying to bring the company down from the inside - a sad end to what once was, debatably, one of the best places in Melbourne to score a job!
So, the good news is that my flame has been relit. In order to make my life at least that little bit easier, BarCampMelbourne 2.0 will be a one day event so I have more venues to choose from. It has also tentatively been brought forward one week.
Thanks Janet! Apologies for the post title…