Organizing oSC13 - 2 days before(Zero hour)

Well we are practically on day zero. All the core volunteers are now here, and final set up and testing is doing and every hour counts. Huge efforts are becoming from all people around and all people working in the same spot make this one huge hackfest, saving precious time. Preparation for this conference was huge and this is 'show time' for us. The dark spot here is that no matter how we tried, no matter how personal time we dedicated and no matter how tired we are, nothing of that will actually matter if we do not deliver the best  openSUSE conference done.
 To be honest this whole thing surely did not started how I wanted and did not continued as I wanted. I hoped for more help from people, and this is 'my' people. Unfortunately many people were not sure for us taking the conference and many people that said will help were just vanished from the face of the earth after we finally got the conference.
On the other hand help came from unexpected places, faith to the broader community paid off and Stella and Henne turned out to have super powers. I am a very lucky guy I'm telling you...

I don't want to jinx it but if this conference goes the way it should then this will be a great 'fuck off' to all those people. This years oSC team finally made it and delivered what promised to the community.

I am not sure if I will have another actual post until the conference starts(I am planning to post some preparation photos along with comments :P ) so for those coming to this years openSUSE Conference, make things that matter, have a lot of fun and drink like there is no tommorow.
For those who won't come all I will say is that you will lose an once in a life time experience.

Organizing oSC13 - 13 days before(A morning inside my head)

Less than two weeks left. OMG it's getting closer.

Here in Thessaloniki it almost started. As in 3 days from now we will be at the conference testing the network, start setting up the rooms and getting the whole venue ready to accept the 350 to 500 guests and the 50+ volunteers. Not much things are left in their fate those last days. So far we were on a marathon, now we are going on a sprint... After the marathon...

Of course have in mind just in case you decide to organize a conference that luck is not on your side amazing things can go wrong and affect your work. Like, let's see... Having a network upgrade in your neighbor and have no internet for the next 5 days...Without a previous warning from your provider... What are the chances for that?  Luckily I have a great girlfriend who lets me stay at her place and use her internet.

Waiting for the conference to start made me think how I got here. I mean it is interesting how I got into this. No I am not gong to tell you that story, at least not tonight, you will be bored to death, or not :D

The last couple of days I am on to checklists. Me along with Stella and Henne are checking again and again what was done,what was not done and what is left behind and needs a boosting. The thing is that things are going better than even I originally have calculated. Having people like Carlos, Juergen and Jos onto doing things is simply a miracle producing machine. Let's hope that by the end of the Conference they will still want to talk to me :P

Today I remembered that I have a presentation about oSC13 in oSC13. I would like to find some time and prepare that at some point but my guess is that this will be done just a few hours before the talk. Don't get me wrong, I love making presentations, I just hate preparing them. The good thing with that particular presentation is that I know the talk, I just need the slides for it,mmmm

In a while I have a meeting, with 13 days to go I calculate than I have less than 10 meetings to go before the conference, yeaaaaaaah.

Organizing oSC13 - 16 days before

So here we are 2 days and 2 weeks before the conference starts. One part of myself is finding it hard to believe that we are close to the end of preparation and so close to the start of the conference. Those days I find myself singing "Nothing else matters" from Metallica every few minutes. I mean really the first turn seem to me it is written for the state I am on those days :

So close, no matter how far
Couldn't be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are
And nothing else matters

It is those last days before the conference that let you know what you are made of. New people comming, some people canceling, suddently companies and organizations woke up and want to be a part of it but there is no way to make this work, finalizing everything is a do or die situation... Not a walk in the park I would say. 

The good thing is that I see task on trello moving from doing to done really fast and that calms me down. I am a bit angry because I wanted to be at this years aKademy but again I cannot due to the conference, I promised myself(again) that next year I will be there, lets see. 

Deadlines are over one by one fast, but for some reason this is relieving since it means fewer things to be done. I hope that next week will be the calmer of all in that almost 9 month period that we work for the conference, my other half of the organization team, Stella things that I am wrong but we will know that in a few days. It is not that I could use a calm week, it's been so long since I started working for 16/24 7/7 for the conference that I am not sure I know what to do with that 'Free' time. Ok I honestly hope my girlfriend doesn't read that particular post :D

In the end of all one thing is for sure, this is the most crucial week of the period, if something goes wrong this week the changes to make it right are very few, but it won't, I planned the whole damn thing this way, lol...

Organizing oSC13 - 22 days before

"It is in the nature of things that every time you try to avoid one danger you run into another"
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli


I am so happy that I read some books when I was younger since now I can understand things better in order to accept various sittuations that happen. You see I have that thing that I cannot accept situations that I cannot understand.

We are 22 days before and although we have made a great progress there are things that need to be done. One thing I see clearly the last few weeks is that no matter how important or minor are the tasks left, they get bigger and bigger every day. This happens because when you plan a conference and add tasks you see in your mind the whole picture when ALL those tasks will be done. Of course you reject some in the course of making the conference but now, just 22 days before you want everything to be done. The alternatives we talked before all worked so far but problems keep comming every single day and you just stand in the front line and face them, lossing a task is not an option, not 22 days before. It is a do or die situation.
 Of course we seem to be in good shape since so far we are doing great but honnestly I have the fear of the failing. On the other hand failing is not an option so...
The thing is that the situation kind of looks like Lernean Hydra where when you cut one head two other pop up.