Have you ever had a post-conference blues? This is the mood which makes you feel like sitting in a dark cage surrounded just by nothing as silence. And I’m still in post-conference blues – or 5 days after POUG2018.
Worst post-conference blues ever?
Actually my worst post-conference blues wasn’t after POUG2018. It was after OOW15 where I had so many talks, hands-on labs, booth duty hours, customer meetings for breakfast, customer meetings for lunch, customer meetings for dinner, customer meetings for drinks after dinner, user group invitations, company event invitations … on Thursday afternoon I was sitting on my bed in a hotel down at the Wharf, starring at the wall – and the only sound in my head came from the outside: seagulls and ship horns. I was starring at the wall for 2 hours. I felt empty. It was a fantastic OOW – but I felt so terribly exhausted. When I boarded the plane back home, I almost felt asleep during boarding.
Post-Conference Blues – or 5 days after POUG2018
This time it isn’t worse than OOW15. But it feels still … a bit sad? I really have to thank all the POUG organizers, of course including Kamil and Luiza and all the others who made this a very special conference. I have seen many excellent talks. And I don’t want to compare it to other great conferences, but having 3 streams and such an impressive line-up of speakers from all over the world … it has to be said: This was truly a very special conference.
When you take into consideration that many take days off, pay their flights by themselves, the hotel bills and expenses, just to be there, to speak, explain, instruct, demo, educate. Simply awesome.
Hence, thanks to all the excellent speakers who came not only from around-the-corner but from Tunisia, Austria, Switzerland, Finland, France, Netherlands, Germany, USA, Slovenia, England, Northern Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Macedonia, Ireland, Hong Kong, Denmark, Costa Rica (or was it Puerto Rico? – can’t remember 😉 ) and of course Poland. Hope I haven’t forgotten any country. Sorry – I did: Belgium was missing. Anyway, what a line-up.
Where does the blues come from?
I’ve had a nice chat with Martin Berger about conferences. We both had just one single talk. And as the conference happened in Sopot directly at the Baltic Sea you could think that we were hanging out most of the time in a lounge chair at the beach trying the beers Kamil served.
But that’s not true. In fact, a conference means that you talk to each other. A lot. That you exchange experiences, findings, bugs, cloud adventures. Or that you get asked at 23:00h if you can arrange a meeting with Larry (not Carpenter!) to discuss “cloud topics and how Oracle could improve”. It means switching between your mother tongue and at least one foreign language back and forth. Constantly. And you guys from Switzerland speaking 3 or 4 languages have my full respect. So the time at the conference is intense. And challenging. But worth every second. I learned so many new things in just 2 days. I will never understand why most conferences have declining numbers (POUG had more attendees than the year before as far as I know).
Of course, the conference is not over on Saturday 18:00h. You hang out a bit with the other folks. Then you meet for dinner. Which is funny when 40 people show up at one of the best steak places in Sopot. Without a reservation. On a Saturday night. The Polish beef they served was exceptionally good. And somehow magically, we all found a seat.
I think it’s that mix of excellent talks keeping your brain in “online mode”, the conversations in between, the friendship, the humor, the fun – and all around Oracle stuff – which makes such conferences an excellent event. And as soon as I return home, I start missing many of these great people.
Thanks again to everybody – this was a (I’ll quote Kamil) F***CKING AWESOME conference 🙂
See you soon or next year – wherever it will be!
Before I forget … the slides
Well, thanks also for coming to my talk – and for the feedback afterwards. You can download the slides from here:
And they include links to the video snippets as well.
–Mike
I know the feeling. After a conference, whenever I can I stay another day. It gives me a chance to enjoy the location, but also to come down from the high. I find myself functioning purely on adrenalin and can’t fly like that, I can’t sit still and my mind is buzzing. Decompress and make a list of follow up actions, and I can rest during the flight and think about all the fun