2013 Conferencing

This year I wanted to attend to two Agile (un)conferences: Conferencia Agile-Spain (CAS2013) and Agile-Lean Europe (ALE2013). The former because I'm trying to participate in my local community, Agile-Barcelona, and I know there are a lot of amazing people in the Spanish Agile sphere and the latter because, I don't know why, I feel I'm part of that awesome community.

Both experiences have been great, in all senses, and in both events I tried to contribute. I'm a newbie, and I have lot to learn, but I thought I could bring something, not directly related to Agile, but related to our soft-skills, and I managed to give a short talk in both events and both in English. I'm really satisfied with the results.

I'll try to summarize both experiences in one single post.

ALE: Awesomeness

My first contact with the ALE community was in ALE2012, held in Barcelona. It was a life-changing event for me. I thought that that kind of experience could never be improved: I was wrong.

My visit to Bucharest for ALE2013 (#ale13), meeting a lot of new friends from Romania, with a superb organization and excellent keynotes was for me an improvement, not a continuation. I missed a lot of friends from xALEc (Franck, Ivana, Tonino, Kjell, ...), but I met a lot of new ones.

My humble talk was about The Cognitive Power of Comics (video available), trying to connect information visualization, reading habits and communication techniques, with the excuse of the publication of the graphic novel Commitment about project management and decision making (it was a pity not having OlavMaassen in the conference).

I learnt a lot between the sessions and in the conference halls, as always happens in ALE. I enjoyed having a lot of Spanish contributors and I started to love Romania.

ALE is the best moment of the year to renew your energy.

If I have to summarize the conference I get what the kids in ALE said:
"We understood Agile is about having fun, being creative and deliver".

CAS: Conferencia Agile-Spain

CAS2013 (#cas2k13) was my first CAS, even though I already had met a lot of spanish Agilists in the postgrade, other events and Hangouts. It was in Bilbao and was fantastic.

For the CAS I suggested a the short talk Hacking your Body Language and the organizers asked me to give it in English. My session was at the same time other speakers I admire (Jorge Uriarte, Bea Martín and José E. Huerta), and still there were people in my room. And I was really satisfied with the results.

The final challenge came from Vicenç Garcia, an organizer from Agile-Norte who asked three agilists to do “big sketchnoting” (Graphic Recording, Visual Notetaking) of the three keynotes: Antonio de la Torre, Javier Alonso and me.

I was the only one who dared recording the keynote in English, so Antonio did Angel Medinilla  keynote, Javier did Koldo Saratxaga's [2] and I did Tobias Mayer's [vine by Javier] (pictures by Gorka Armentia).

It was the first time for the three of us. I bought my markers the week before the event. We three have completely different styles, and we are learning, but I love these pictures. Thank you, Vicenç!

I had the opportunity to devirtualize a lot of spanish Agilists. I loved a lot of conversations (Teresa, Maica and Ana, specially). I learnt a lot of the group and the people. I had the opportunity ask favours and receive a lot more of what was requested. And again, I learnt in the sessions and between them.

And I enjoyed taking sketchnotes.

I'm really grateful to Gerard Chiva, Daniel Cardiel, José E., Rut, Jaume, Albert, Marc, David and Finner for helping me in the conferences in one way or another. Thank you.