LISA 2009 - First Day Thoughts

Hello, thanks for reading the USENIX blog devoted to the LISA ’09 Conference! My name is Matt Simmons, and I’m one of the bloggers who will be writing here with daily updates on events at the conference.

Since I live in New Jersey, I took advantage of the extensive rail network in the North East and arrived in Baltimore Penn Station via Am-Trak this morning. I got out of my cab at the hotel and stared up in appreciation. The conference is being held at the beautiful Marriott Waterfront on the inner harbor, and even the overcast sky couldn’t take away from its impressive façade. I checked in with no issues, delivered my luggage to my room, and virtually ran downstairs to check in at the conference desk.

As luck would have it, I ran right into Pamela Howell, who is the video blogger this year. She showed me around the registration area, introduced me to the USENIX staff working the desks, and helped me get registered. By this time, it was right around noon, so rather than barge into the end of a morning session, I waited it out until the after-lunch sessions began.

I spent the afternoon in Maurita Plouff’s “Management Skills, or, Don’t Panic!” training. This class focused on developing successful workers, influence, and communicating with your management, which teaches that people can be loosely fitted into a series of personality types, and each type responds to different stimuli, and can be motivated in varying ways. Successfully managing the people who report to us, our customers, and our managers requires effectively utilizing these techniques.

In addition to telltales and watchwords of each of the personality types, Maurita wove a blanket of stories from her experiences in IT, discussing everything from messenger boys to party lines to ubiquitous computing environments. I enjoyed the depressingly short period of time I was able to attend this training, and if she offers it again next year, I wholeheartedly recommend signing up. It was a great time, and everyone enjoyed participating with tales of their own management experiences.

Tomorrow I'll be at the "Working with SELinux" training in the morning and "IPv6: An Introduction" in the afternoon. I can't wait.

Until next time!

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By Matt Simmons, author of the Standalone Sysadmin blog