The conference is over.  It was really quite exhausting.  I was looking forward to a break from work, but it turned out to be more mentally tiring than a typical workweek.  I’m sure I’ve worked 40 hours already; there were four hours of conference activity on Sunday, and we worked just about every night until 8 or 9.  It was hard work, but it was pretty rewarding; I have to say it was more valuable than most conferences I’ve been to.  I really enjoyed working with my fellow Technology Hitchhikers.  They were smart, fun people who were great contributors to the project.  And even though it was hard work, it was nice to have a change of pace.

We give a lot of lip service at work to leadership and management and everything, but it’s easy to give it lower priority when there are actual deadlines to be met, downed servers to be upped, and phone calls to return.  It was nice to spend a week actually focusing on those issues without feeling like it was taking away from the other things I ought to be doing.

I learned about how to use data effectively in presentations (how to gauge one’s audience to decide how much detail to offer), how to manage group dynamics to exploit the strengths of group members, and how to “lead from where you are.”  That is, you don’t have to be the director of a group to help guide things in a positive direction.  This is good ammo for a buffalo such as myself.  Now I feel compelled to try a buffalo burger.  I see them on menus sometimes, but I’ve never tried them.  I have no serious qualms with cannibalism.

One cool thing about meeting so many different people from so many different places was listening to all the accents.  There were quite a few Canadians talking aboot a variety of topics, and one of my co-Hitchhikers is from Australia.  She lives in Melbourne, but she knows Canberra and Sydney well, so we had a good talk about some of the places I’ve been in Australia.  Two of the other Hitchhikers are from North Carolina, and another is from China by way of Penn State.  There were Texans in the big group, and Tennesseeans (Tennesseesians?  Tennessenators?), and New Jersians.  It was cool to talk to them.

I also did a very good job being social.  I must confess, though, that I am now peopled out.  I am sitting in a restaurant at the hotel right now, because I have some time to kill before I go to the airport, and some of the people from the conference who are also eating here invited me to join them.  I’m sure they’re very nice, but after nearly a week of constant interfacing, networking, and intensive group activity, I just need some time to myself (aka Joe Time).  So I’m enjoying a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, enjoying the broadband connection in the restaurant, and doing some mental decompression.
Also, I watched Project Runway last night.  My favorite is the architect who looks like Geena Davis.  She’s so elegant and polished, even though she has five kids, and her designs are really classic and timeless, yet not boring.  I hope she doesn’t turn annoying.  Sometimes it’s hard to tell until you’re a few episodes in.

I’ll be getting home tonight, and my darling husband is picking me up at the airport.