The Loveable Geek

Now that I am back from another great UKLUG event, I would like to share my thoughts, observations and highlights on what was another epic Lotus User Group event.

(Apologies for the bullet points, but I’m still knackered after driving home from Manchester last night)

• The venue was magnificent. Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry was made for hosting geek-level events such as UKLUG
• The quantity of the speaker & sponsor sessions was just right. However, the quality of these sessions was outstanding
• Session highlights for me were Chris Miller’s “Properly & Securely Deploying Plugins & Widgets” and Carl Tyler’s hilarious “23 Years of Lotus and still going strong”
• Mark Myers is very tall, but a really lovely bloke to chat to. He and Matt White did an excellent job of representing their LDC comrades
• Finally getting to meet and chat with: Tom “Duffbert” Duff, Marie Scott and Sharon Bellamy was excellent. They were 3 of the nicest peeps I have had the pleasure of meeting
• Lisa Duke has wonderfully loud and infectious laugh. But then again, so does Kathy Brown
• Smurf porn anyone?
• Steve McDonagh is great guy to present with. Our session “Admin-Dev Synergy – fact or fiction?” was a lot of fun to deliver and was warmly received by all those who attended. Thank you to those of you who came along!
• UKLUG (and ILUG) should come with a government health warning about sugar levels!
• Paul Mooney works waaaaay too hard, but it was great to see him deliver Adminblast once again
• Stuart McIntyre and Darren Duke do a great job recording and producing the “This week in Lotus” pod casts. They did episode 53 live from UKLUG, which included a great panel discussion featuring Stuart, Darren, Mary Beth Raven, Mat Newman, Julian Robichaux and Bill Buchan
• The Yellow Silk Suit was awesome, as was it’s owner – the incomparable Mat Newman. Mat’s session with Mary Beth Raven was terrific and was just what I needed to boost my yellow levels!
• All of the sponsors were great. The freebies and prize give-aways were amazing, as was their generosity. Without them UKLUG would not have been as successful as it was.

The organisers, as always, were outstanding in their efforts. The UKLUG organising team did another terrific job of planning and delivering a free, content rich, entertaining Lotus User group event.