Wow, what a week**. Based on the feedback we heard or saw (Josh, tweets), some blog posts we read (Joel, Brian), as well as Jason and my own observations, we can now say RefreshCache was a total success!
While each person had their favorite part, I think we're all in agreement when I say we came together because of our passion for using software technology to grow the Kingdom of God. Each of us wants to make a difference for the kingdom and we want to use our skills to create software. Ultimately RefreshCache was a seed; a realization that we are not limited by the speed of a vendor (as is the case with most other ChMS systems) and a kick start to working together as a community throughout the whole year.
For me, it was an honor to be able to rub shoulders with the guys that attended. Here were some of my highlights and favorite moments:
- Getting to hang out with Daniel Hazelbaker from HDC and chat about check-in, subversion, CodePlex, branching, etc. You should see the Arena WS API he created!
- Having time to work in Visual Studio with Austin Spooner from NCBC. Austin is Mr. Answer Man when it comes to Arena modules.
- Having time to talk about open source and Typo3 with Brian Slezak from COR. We're lucky to have someone with Brian's experience on our team.
- Getting owned by David Turner in a few rounds of Halo ODST and learning about the Voracity Solutions package installer. This guy is skilled with Visual Studio and the Rocket Launcher.
- Getting to see the work of Tom Powers, Josh Martin, and Maxim Strelsov from Southeast Christian. These guys are pretty new to Arena but they're already creating great stuff. I can't wait to see what they tackle next.
- Talking with Joel Lingenfelter from HDC about coffee and all things ChMS. He has to be the most gifted CFO I've ever met!
- Chatting with Michael Speers and Eric Byrd from Shadow Mountain. Thanks to their questions, they spurred on a mini "check out the features right under your nose" session.
- Getting to hear from Central's own Jason Offutt on JSON, SOA, and jQuery. Jason's an engineer and an artist!
- Listening to CCV's Jeff Schinella on Semantic Web, CSS and XSLT. We all need to put his lesson into action.
- Hearing Jon's closing presentation on "Life After Features" some of which is touched on in his blog. and David's blog on eRA. Jon is a visionary and always seems to be 2 steps ahead of everyone.
For you Arena community developers who missed this year's event, you need to join us on IRC channel #ArenaChMS if you want to plug into this group of guys. Like I said at R.C., we are all going to see the rediscovery of Internet Relay Chat once the Google Wave hits -- albeit in a newer, easier to use form.
To correct the record, I'd say that Mark Miller was the actual inspiration for RefreshCache. Mark is a creative cinematographer/director genius and due to unforeseen events he had to bow out from the planning of RefreshCache early this summer. Hopefully we'll have someone of his caliber to kick next year's RefreshCache into the event-execution stratosphere. Also thanks to Mark we have the only clear picture at RefreshCache (showing a handful of people).
Lastly, I just want to publically thank Kim Musgrave, Liz (my wife) and especially Jason Offutt who picked up the tasks when we lost Mark Miller, because without him RefreshCache 09 would not have happened.
** For anyone that though I was kidding, I crashed at 7pm on Thursday night and slept for 13 hours.