Conecuh Software

The Southeast Linux Fest has been announced for June 13, 2009, at Hendrix Student Center, Clemson University. Several notable speakers will be there, including Mark Spencer of Asterisk and Digium.

This promises to be a well attended, and exciting event. The organizers have a wiki, and hold weekly IRC meetings on Tuesday on #southeastlinuxfest (irc.freenode.net).

Since this is at Clemson University, I plan on taking the Amtrak train from Birmingham (BHM) to Clemson (CSN). Coach price is $48 one way. The Amtrak site doesn’t have any upgrade options currently, but I’m sure that there’s an option to pay more and have more luxury.

Event details:
Where: Hendrix Student Center, Clemson University, Google Maps
When: June 13, 2009
Transportation: Amtrak, Greenville SC (GSP)

As I’m sitting in the WordCamp Birmingham meeting today, I’m looking around the room wondering “what does everyone have in common *except* that they’re interested in WordPress?”.

The mix of people here varies from WordPress gurus to people that don’t know what WordPress is exactly. We’ve got

• local developers
• graphic designers
• copywriters
• television news professionals
• and local bloggers

The parallel common theme is that the attendees are all interested in continuing their education. In this case, it’s new media. Last week, I attended an event in ATL (Atlanta Linux Fest), where a similar parallel common theme existed.

Traditional continuing education can’t keep up with “Internet speed”. As soon as a class can be developed, the concepts have changed. In a local event, the content changes right up to the beginning of the conference. The questions raised
can even add more content.

Attending these events can help to increase the connection between members of the local community. Non-local guests can help to cross-pollinate ideas. Mostly, the ideas and and experience from attending and presenting at these events help to establish the attendees as willing to do whatever it takes to stay current.