FOSDEM 2012 was very nice, as expected.

This year, I decided to stop consuming only and getting more involved. I helped staff the token sale and held two Lightning Talks. This turned out to be an awesome experience.

During the beer event, we sold 4600 beer tokens (FOSDEM does not earn anything from this; all proceeds go to Cafe Delirium). The sale was staffed with one to three people at all times which made for a constant but mostly bearable workload. While the others made good-natured fun of me and my German efficiency, I like to think that I helped make things run a tad more smoothly. Along those lines, we will have a sign asking people for exact change and/or to buy stacks that can be paid in bills if possible, next year; that should help streamline the whole thing even more. All in all, it turned out to be quite stressful, but tons of fun. I am looking forward to chuck in again next year.

The two Lighting Talks (vcsh on Saturday and git-annex on Sunday) I held very rather well received. Feedback after the talks and online was very positive which is always nice. There's been a slight increase in help requests and generic questions, so I assume people are trying vcsh and git-annex as a consequence of those talks, which is even nicer.

Also, I met a lot of people. Most of the meetings were pre-arranged, some by chance. Carrying a name tag at all times, I was approached by several people who knew me online but didn't know my face. I will try to always carry a name tag on conferences now and I suggest others do the same.

Finally, a huge thank you to everyone who helped make FOSDEM happen; you rock!