Mark McAulay

On the 2nd march, I set off on what had turned into something of a personal mission to operate outside of my comfort zone. I was off to Edinburgh to meet web designers and developers away from my usual Aberdeen haunts. Going 'Lone Wolf', I wanted to put some real life faces to twitter avatars, to see how meetups differed from the Aberdeen scene and to see how i'd get along on my own at a conference primarily focused on technology i've not had the opportunity to use for quite some time. Now i've been home for several days, It's time to write down my thoughts, experiences and a bit about what i learned during my time away.

I rocked into Edinburgh just in time to dump my gear at the hotel and dive out the door again to the Holyrood9A for the Refreshedi meetup. I had been invited along by @cole007 who has been a twitter acquaintance for quite some time, it was great to finally meet him in person. This was an informal 'Burger and Beer' event with 25+ people in attendance. Was a real pleasure to meet several interesting people and discuss the slightly different fields of web development they were involved in. I also had the chance to chat to Bruce Lawson and Christopher David Mills from Opera who had swung past for a bit. All of this was washed down with Brewdog beer which was on tap and one of the tastiest burgers i've had in a while. I'd love to return one day for the more formal talks that happen.

 

For 2 days, I made the 10 minute walk down the cowgate, slightly hung over, to the venue for this years Scotch on the Rocks event, Europes longest running CFML conference. I was a little apprehensive to attend at all this year due to the fact I've not used CFML in anger for a couple of years but never the less, I wanted to see what i'd been missing and how I still felt about CFML. I also wanted to catch up with some of the people I met back in 2008 when I last attended and to meet some more twitter friends in the flesh. I have no idea how I managed to do it, but I didn't end up in one session specifically to do with a technical aspect of CFML! I learned plenty about requirements and estimating, agile methodologies, working with people, HTML5, CSS3, jQuery Mobile, workflow and productivity. I also managed to catch up with everyone I had hoped to, met, and got my photo taken with the legend that is Ben Nadel, had a beer with Andy Allan and the Opera guys again, got a new Fuzzy Orange pen, didn't win anything in the raffle again and generally had a very worthwhile couple of days here. No hotel trouble, nothing got broken and i made it to my train home with time to spare. I'd say that was a success.

It's all too easy to just go with the routine and do what you've always done, speak to who you always speak to and go to the same events you always go to. Going away on my own to meet people I didn't *really* know was something of an adventure. To step outside my comfort zone and meet up with a lot of different people over 3 days in another city was massively educational, challenging and sometimes surprising. I have changed my outlook on a number of things and this time away has made me hungrier than ever for my chosen field. This is something i'd recommend any web designer/developer to do.