[wplug-plan] Summer Slam report

[Vance Kochenderfer]

Just to let people know about my experience at Summer Slam last
night, I arrived somewhat late (6:40ish).  By that time, the
appetizers were essentially gone, but there was still a decent-
sized crowd.  I was representing by wearing a WPLUG polo shirt.
Upon heading over to the bar to get a drink, I was immediately
accosted by someone who wanted me to talk to her coworker about
migrating web stuff from Solaris to Red Hat.  We talked a bit
about the kind of things WPLUG does and I promoted the August
installfest to them.

Technical recruiters were hitting the crowd pretty hard; I think I
ended up with five cards despite not expressing any interest in
changing jobs.

After we finished that conversation, I wandered around a little
bit.  Things were thinning out by this point.  Dave Ostroske
showed up and he and I spoke a little with a DBA and gave him a
card, but don't know if he was really interested.

A few user groups and recruiters had tables set up with flyers
and such, but they started folding up not too long after I
arrived so I didn't get around to seeing them.

The takeaway I got was:
  -This is a good event to reach out to professionals in the area
  -A little pre-planning (e.g., having someone there the whole
   time, having a stack of flyers) would probably have resulted in
   making more contacts
  -Wearing something with Tux on it is a good way to get noticed
  -Come early if you want food

All in all, I think this is a worthwile event for us to be
involved with in the future.  I'm going to send Jared a thank-you
and hopefully they'll ask us to participate next year.

Vance Kochenderfer        |  "Get me out of these ropes and into a
vkochend at nyx.net          |   good belt of Scotch"    -Nick Danger