I just hit the ground in Canada after returning from Astricon. The silence for the last couple of days has been do to two things: travel, and the terrible French WiFi. I’ve still got another three hours of travelling, but two of them involve me parking myself on the floor in Montreal airport, and catching on a little web surfing.
Astricon was great, if a little small. Reflecting back on it, I met a series of interesting people who are all part of this growing community of developers. I also had an opportunity to have some Pizza with a bunch of the Digium folks in Berlin on Tuesday night, including Mark. Thanks for buying the Pizza mark!
People were genuinely interested in what iotum is doing, and I expect more than a few takers for the iotum free accounts offer we’re currently running. There were also a couple of really good opportunities for us too, any of which would easily make the show into a home run.
As the show wound up, I thanked Steve Sokol for having me as a speaker. I mentioned to him that I thought it would have been more effective to have it in one location, rather than Paris, Berlin and London.  It would been easier on my pocketbook too, to travel for three days, rather than 7 days in two different cities. Steve agreed.Â
I also think that providing WiFi (as Pulver does at the VON events) would be a huge improvement.
Two small dings, in what was otherwise a valuable and professionally run event.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
