Codemotion Milan 2016

Sat 26 November 2016 in talks

My Codemotion spree of this year ended in the beautiful city of Milan. I was quite impressed by the sheer amount of talks and speaker and even more of their quality. Unfortunately I could only attend a few since I arrived during the first day and decided that my own talk could use one more practice round in the hotel speaking to myself in the mirror and since the trains were on strike that day, I decided to walk to the venue and have my my first gelato - which is compulsory in Italy even with 10° and rain.

When I finally arrived, I got distracted by a VR demonstration, which completely blew my mind and made me want to be in virtual reality all the time. Ready Player One came into my mind and I wondered how long knowledge workers will keep insisting on commuting to an office instead of just staying at home and meet in an virtual space. Guess the technology isn't quite there yet but the experience definitely got me thinking about how virtual worlds could be used as an interface to computers. Something along the lines of croquet or cobalt.

Later that evening we taxied halfway across town for a very enjoyable dinner with the Codemotion team, speakers and sponsors. I loved the setting and the cocktail-party style with trays of finger-food making it's rounds through the crowd. The food was absolutely delicious, especially the tiny burgers. I'm very thankful to the organizers for that evening.

Next day was my moment of truth. I presented a brand new talk which was surprisingly preparation-intensive. Especially once I decided to make it completely live - meaning live coding and live slide-drawing. I was quite nervous because of the new format and new subject which might have been the reason why I ended up on a train in the wrong direction which led to me running from the train station to the auditorium to make it just in time.

The talk went surprisingly well, was great fun and successful in its objective to blow at least one mind. Another outcome is that I'm currently planning to create a monthly Smalltalk meet-up in Berlin together with Oleksii Fedorov.

So thanks to Codemotion Milan for giving me the opportunity to talk about Smalltalk and try out a new presentation format. Won't definitely the last time I used it.


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