A young woman approached me after I delivered my "You and Your Technical Community" presentation at Beer City Code Saturday in Grand Rapids, MI. In my talk, I shared how my involvement in the tech community enhanced my career and suggested how others could get involved. I hoped to inspire some of them to try public speaking, connect more with others, and volunteer at local events. This woman had recently moved to suburban Detroit and wanted to know how she could find opportunities to get involved locally. I was delighted to help her because I was thrilled that she heard the lessons I was trying to teach, and she was determined to act on those lessons.
I also delivered a presentation at BCC titled "Blood, Sweat, and Code Reviews," in which I described the process, benefits, and challenges of conducting effective code reviews and ways to address those challenges. I heard positive feedback from attendees of this talk as well.
Teaching and inspiring attendees is one of my motivations for attending conferences like this. But I also was able to learn. In addition to my two sessions, I listened to the following:
Debunking the Complexity of Continuous Deployment
Carlus Henry talked about the advantages and challenges of CI/CD and walked through the process of creating a reliable deployment process.
Azure Managed Identities: Connect Without Connection Strings
AL Rodriguez (He capitalizes his entire first name all across social media) demystified identity management in Azure and simplified the concept of managed identities.
Getting Good (or Better) at Code Reviews
I wanted to see Rhia Dixon's presentation because one of my talks at this conference was on a similar topic. I will incorporate a few of her ideas into my presentation next time.
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Microsoft sponsored this event. My employer used to financially support many code camps like this, but they have done so less frequently in the past few years.
I loved seeing old friends, meeting new people, and hearing positive feedback from attendees. I am grateful to J Tower and the other organizers for an excellent weekend!