Last three days I spent at Front Trends conference in Warsaw. I must admit that it was the best event I took part into. I’m not a big fun of such events because I like to get practical knowledge, not only ensures that JavaScript and HTML5 is the best what happened in the web. It’s also hard for me to sit down and listen lectures for too long, maybe as I finished my school education so far ago. Anyway, the event was great and surprised me positively.
Speakers
When I first read the schedule I thought: ‘Well, who the f… are those people?’ Yep, accept two or three people I didn’t recognise anyone on the speaker list. I was disappointed as I was sure that for example Addy Osmani would be one of the speaker (I love this guy! :) . But it turned out that the speakers were really great. Smart, amusing and really, really wise people. I respect and admire what they do for web community. I hope one day I also give something so freshy and practical as they did.
Venue
I think it was the weakest element of the conference. The event took place into the Soho Factory. First of all it’s hard to get there. No subway, only one tram from the city center. The surroundings terrible (the right side of the Warsaw isn’t so nice – old houses, garbage everywhere etc.). Speeches took place into depot. There were a lot of room and fresh air there (it’s a pros) but it wasn’t warm on Wednesday, so I really got cold (I hate that!).
Food and drinks
I’m not gourmet. In fact I’m rather boring if you ask me about food but I must admit that food was delicious and there was a lot of it. I’m also not a big drinker but they served beer during conference so if somebody needed to take a courage there was a possibility.
Light talks
On the second stage, there were also additional speeches – light talks. I must say that in this point the organizers failed. There were the wi-fi problems all the time, so speakers were fighting technicals problems all the time instead being focused what they want to say. It was annoying for them and for audience. I hope these problems won’t repeat next time. Otherwise it’s pointless to organize such speeches.
To wrap up, there were some pros and cons of this conference but for me the most important is that I got actual knowledge and motivation to work harder. I think that web technologies will have great future because we have such wise and hard-working people on the board :)
Here are links to (almost) all presentations from Front Trends.