I’ve been going to LISA and USENIX ATC conferences for a long time. A conference is an intense experience. You have limited time and you want to want to meet everyone and see everything. While I enjoy the experience thoroughly, there have been times when I had less fun than I might have. If this is your first conference there are a few things you’ll want to think about both before you arrive and as the week goes on.
Submitted by Hugh Brown on October 29, 2014 - 8:08 pm
If you've taken a look at the
Workshops available at LISA this year, you’ve probably been
impressed by the wide range of subjects being covered. As a small
sample of what's on tap, Mark Lamourine interviewed three workshop
leaders to find out more about their background and what attendees can
expect.
Submitted by beerops on October 29, 2014 - 4:16 pm
In this interview, Lee Damon, the LISA14 Lightning Talk coordinator, tells us about some of Seattle’s great sights and attractions, getting around town, and everything else you might need to know for your upcoming trip to the Pacific Northwest.
Submitted by beerops on October 20, 2014 - 7:47 pm
There’s so much at LISA to be excited about this year, it can be hard to know where to start. Here, longtime LISA attendee/presenter and author Tom Limoncelli tells us what he’s most looking forward to, who should hurry up and register if they haven’t already, and what he thinks about the future of system administration.
Submitted by Hugh Brown on October 18, 2014 - 4:29 pm
Our profession is one without a lot of formal training (though that's changing...).
Instead, most of our knowledge is picked up on the job. We learn by
doing.
But this has its downsides. Sure, nobody wants a "paper tiger" -- all
certificates and no practical experience -- but how do you learn to do
X on the job, if your job doesn't need you to do X right now? Or what
if there's no one around to teach you X, or who knows the pitfalls to
watch out for?
Submitted by beerops on October 16, 2014 - 5:27 pm
In addition to the talks and tutorials at LISA14, there are four other full-day events held in conjunction with the conference. Learn more about these co-located events and why you should attend them.
Submitted by Hugh Brown on October 13, 2014 - 4:50 pm
There are deadlines you can safely ignore: they're soft, and the consequences are trivial. And then there are the deadlines that, when you miss them, make you smack your forehead and cry out to the sky avove, "WHY didn't I catch that?" We're coming close to one of those important deadlines, and I want to give you fair warning.
OK, so it’s 3:00pm, everyone’s on break getting coffee. It’s been a long day of sitting and listening. It’s good stuff and I’ve met some people that I want to keep in contact with. There’s another two hours to go before dinner and then… what?
Actually there are a lot of possibilities. While the days are for other people to talk, the nights are for me, and the place to start is the sign boards near the registration desk. This is where the evening activities are posted.
Submitted by Hugh Brown on October 5, 2014 - 6:26 am
Some things are clearly a lot of work, even to people on the outside; organizing a conference the size of LISA is a good example. Sysadmins, though, can find it difficult to explain the importance of their work -- how do you point to invisible scaffolding that users only miss when it's gone? LISA14 Chair Nicole Forsgren Velasquez wants to give us the tools to show and justify the efforts we make when speaking to our customers.
It’s great to see LISA paying attention to the diversity of its attendees and speakers, with talks like Building the Women@Work Community and the Ally Skills Workshop. This post will discuss how conference attendees can contribute towards creating a conference environment that’s comfortable for everyone.
