Well I'd hoped to blog a bunch of things for MXDU live -- but with all the mayhem, last minute changes and running around there was no time! So I'm sitting in bed with one of these flashy Apple G4 Laptops blogging away over the Airport, reflecting on the conference that was.
The word on the street is that MXDU was a great success. Given the enthusiasm for the event we're already thinking about MXDU 2004. Before I launch into some behind the scenes stories of MXDU madness, let me take this moment to extend a heartfelt thanks to Julie and Sam who worked tirelessly to make the conference a success.
Though things appeared to go flawlessly on the surface -- chaos and mayhem were bubbling away underneath :) We lost two of our keynotes due to unforseen circumstances the week before the conference was due to start and that was only the beginning...
Sean Corfield and Mike Chambers pulled out within a week of the conference -- despite all of our collective efforts to change matters, Mike and Sean had to stay behind. So casting the net further out we approached Branden Hall about coming. As luck would have it, Branden is in the DC area and a good mate of Mike's -- so with surprisingly little arm twisting Branden was on board Mike's ticket downunder.
To cap it off I get an urgent message from Allen Ellison who was trapped a 150 strong, stand-by queue of death in San Francisco. Some lunatic told him he'd be sweet on a cheap standby flight out to Australia if he was happy to wait a while -- they didn't figure on the San Franciscan popularity of the Sydney Gay Mardi Gras next week. Allen was scheduled for two talks on the second day -- we needed that sort of hole in the line up like a hole in the head. Couple of midnight phone calls later and we had a standard ticket return to Australia courtesy of our platinum sponsor -- Allen is ex-Macromedia and we took out another loan on the favour bank.
Now just a couple of days out we get these freak snow storms in DC -- Branden's first flight is cancelled and rebooked. Another day later, my last Instant Message from Branden at 2.30am Syndey time is that there is 2-foot of snow and the final connecting flight is cancelled -- all was lost... I spend half an hour trying to work out contingencies, fill in speakers, how to break the news to delegates and groupies -- I was going to be torn limb from limb by these freaks...
At times like this you just hit the sack -- there's not really much more you can do than let nature take its course. 6am I have this odd disjointed online chat with Branden about a re-route via Chicago -- then nothing!
Turns out Branden just had like an hour to reach the airport for a new flight -- he must have just ripped the computer out of the wall, jumped in the SUV, and hot-tailed it through the snow to the airport. He touched base out of Chicago -- busily whipping up his Keynote -- just to let us know that things were back on but he'd be arriving at 7.30am on the last day -- just before his 9am Keynote in Sydney.
We totally reshuffled the last day schedule and pushed Branden to after lunch -- we figured after customs, the body cavity search, and the taxi ride into the city he'd be cutting it a bit close. After a quick shower Branden seemed fresh as a daisy and raring to go. We were more concerned about Jesse Warden, who'd been out on the town the night before with Craig Harcombe and crew from AusTiger -- Jesse wanted to go dancing but only "budgie smugglers" were allowed and he'd left his at the hotel.
The final session was a Q&A with all the speakers on stage -- I ran around like Jerry Springer with a mike, fielding questions from the floor. Looking up at collective brains trust I was struck for the first time just how impressive a line up Flash & CF divinity we had gracing our humble get together. The excitement was palpable -- the speakers could have gone crowd surfing and nothing would have been out of place. As Julie had remarked several times in the lead up to MXDU, it *really* was "A Rock Concert for Geeks".
Posted by modius at 08:45 AM | Permalink
Trackback: http://blog.daemon.com.au/cgi-bin/dmblog/mt-tb.cgi/88
Geoff, you and the other folks at Daemon did a great job - kudos to you all.
And I was just remarking to the remarkable Brett Payne-Rhodes that you did indeed look rather like Jerry Springer at that last Q&A session :)
Posted by: Kay Smoljak on February 23, 2003 09:44 PM
Geoff
You and the rest of the Daemonites did a job above-and-beyond. I dread to imagine the sleepless nights you all went through to get MXDU to happen. That said, what DID happen was outstanding and a credit to all of you. If MXDU 2K4 is half as good, it'll be awesome.
You HAVE to get Jesse back, if only for the Aussies to enjoy the aftermath of him seeing the acres of skin at Bondi. Seeing his reaction to HEARING about it in the Chillout Room was worth the price of the conf.
Posted by: Steve Collins on February 24, 2003 10:27 AM
I had a blast guys. I'm so up for next year, hell I'm even dredging through my repetoir for something I can convince you to let me speak on :> (I always wanted to be a rockstar).
Given that I missed Tuesday AND Friday with commitments in Brisbane... I'm so gonna put some more notice in next time and make sure I have time to get exceedingly drunk... And we need to get Jesse back, and pour Bundy into him. That bloke is a bloody ledgend *snickers*
Posted by: Sean on February 27, 2003 02:45 PM