Djangocon.eu preparations¶

Tags: django, gtd, djangocon

Yeah, I’m really going to the djangocon.eu conference in Berlin! Planning to addend a conference always requires some care. You need to arrange things beforehand. Doing things on time can save a whole lot of hassle and money.

It started with my job interview. One of the reasons I maintain my technical edge, I said at that interview, was attending one python-related conference per year. So when I had to write a short note at the start of the year about my goals, interests and plans, I could list “djangocon.eu” as the main educational expense I was planning. “Like I mentioned at my job interview” :-)

The well-known GTD (Getting Things Done) system meant I set up a “djangocon.eu” project way in advance. First action points were “pester the right people inside the company so that they’ll approve the modest funds”. This meant that the very day the djangocon.eu registration opened, I could get myself registered by our secretary.

And the moment the suggested hotels were online I had her book a room in the cheapest hotel.

And this morning I was reminded that I had to book train tickets within the next 10 days or so to get the early bird rates. They’ll be booked next Monday. 98 Euro from Utrecht to Berlin Ostbahnhof and back. Berlin Ostbahnhof is a 15 minutes walk away from the conference center. 98 Euro: beat that, low fare airlines! (At least when you include the money needed to get to/from the airport). And I like trains, so…

GTD also means I’ve got a file (hanging folder cabinet) at home where I’ll put the print-outs with the hotel reservation and the train tickets. Ready for me to put into my bag the day before I leave. And my passport will be filed under the ‘P’ of Passport, ready for the taking.

One thing I haven’t done till now: whip up a proper checklist to check just before I really leave. TODO :-)

One other TODO: I need to get this blog listed on the django community aggregator. I will be live-blogging the conference like I always do, so I’d be a pretty good addition to the community aggregator. Getting yourself listed means sending an email to one single person that’s pretty darn busy getting django 1.2 out of the door. So emailing doesn’t work. I’ll try the bug tracker (component=”website”) probably. This is something I’m keeping an eye on, however, in my gtd file.