“HERE IS THE DAY THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!” shouted Ruby on Rails developers and LessEverything founders Allan Branch and Steven Bristol on the LessConf registration page. They weren’t kidding! As one of the first 100 signups for the inaugural LessConf held recently in Jacksonville, FL, I got to have lunch at the speaker’s table of my choice. I chose Branch because I wanted to get the insider’s scoop on the tech scene in Florida and get his help sourcing hip, geeky new content for TechDrawl.
Branch and Bristol are two awesome men. They are big guys. Branch is a former college offensive lineman. Bristol wrote his first program in BASIC at 9 and has raced motorcyles at 150 mph with a knee on the ground. They love their wives, their parents, and their children. They are smart, really funny — and put on a killer conference that you simply must attend in ‘10. Play the video if you want to know who spoke before I write the next post. It was a pretty dazzling list ending with the amazing and inspiring Gary Vaynerchuk of WineLibrary.tv and VaynerMedia who autographed copies of CrushIt!.
Jennifer Bonnett
My fabulous friend and founder of StartupChicks, Jennifer Bonnett, generously drove the two of us down to sunny Jacksonville where LessConf was being held at a cushy Terry Theater at the Times-Union Center for Performing Arts.
Since Bonnett was trapped in a car with me for 6 hours, I did something I’ve always wanted to do! I picked
Jennifer Bonnett in People Magazine
the brain of a super-bright, experienced technologist (hers) for most of the drive. I got details on the demanding life at EDS back in the day and how Bonnett risked the pass-or-you’re fired Systems Engineer training program there (she passed and moved way up the ranks at EDS). I heard about eTour’s beginnings where she was co-founder and CTO, about its iterations, expansions and eventual aquisition. I heard the play-by-play of how she bought millions of dollars in servers and about the physical installation and boot-up of said servers in a pre-cloud world. I even got to look at her private notebook during the drive and read her notes and flow charts and see how a professional software engineer designs a website from the idea to inception. I’m sure I drove her crazy but it was the beginning of a great, great learning weekend for me. (I think Bonnett needs to record the history of her career because it is valuable and educational for those who follow, and I intend to film her oral history on the next road trip).
We checked into the Wyndham Jacksonville Riverwalk Hotel for an $80 a night slumber party (room share) and went to the bar for a glass of wine. En route to the bar, we passed an incredibly ugly ballroom being outfitted in totally garish orange and navy blue for what appeared to be a prostitute conference we would see the next evening!
This post is getting a little lengthy since Bonnett let me pick her brain and I had to share it with you, so I’ll continue talking about LessConf in a separate post.
Hands down, Bonnett and I agreed it was the very best one-day conference we have ever before attended! TechDrawl and StartupChicks have already agreed to be sponsors if Atlanta is selected for LessConf ‘10 (vote here) and we have already scheduled to take Branch to various venues in Atlanta in November when he is passing through town.
