Kate's Blog

CEC welcome reception

CEC 2006 – the annual technical conference for Sun field staff and partners – started today. I attended the APAC “state of the union” address. It was clear that everyone from APAC had travelled a long way – quite a few nodding heads in the audience. Inevitably, this meant no questions for the speakers, and the APAC attendees were probably the first to reach the reception. Even the Australians were unusually subdued. But generally the feeling is upbeat, in contrast to the mood of the last few years.

As at just about every conference I've attended, the reception was crowded, everyone trying to speak with as many people as possible – catching up with friends from previous events, etc. Being a Australian woman of average height, it was a reminder that a) Americans are tall; and b) most techies are male; and c) the average man is taller than the average woman – and I think many of the attendees were a couple of standard deviations taller than the mean. In spite of this, I managed to meet a fquite ew people, telling them about my session on Monday, and listening to what they are working on, and the issues they face. Got back to the hotel to realise that my conference tshirt is of course too large :(.

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Posted at 05:02AM 03 Oct, 2006 by Kate Morris in Sun  |  Comments[0]