HackingDDorf

Mobile UNconference Düsseldorf

OK, I came back today totally excitied about what I have seen and heard there and I really feel like to share my thoughts, and I am looking forward to read what the other attendees would like to share as well.

Oh, yes, I have been at the Mobile Unconference Düsseldorf Edition today, a kind of BarCamp just a little bit more structured but as fun as any other I guess (Well, it has been my first one - for sure not the last one - but I have had heard a lot about those *meetings* and well, being there looked even better!).

The day started with a pre-unconferrence breakfast with @thedeftone and @apsorizor, at the end, the best way to start is with you stomach happy, isn’t it?

At around 10a.m. we were there a very cool location for a BarCamp. A few people was there already but we had to queue up in the line to register (and, being myself Italian, I am always amazed when a queue really looks like a line) - easygoing, a few minutes and I was in with my stickers with written on it my name and, of course, my twitter.

Already there there were a lot of known faces from Vodafone D2 and Appseleration and by the time a lot of tweeps shown up as well.

The kick-off session started with around 30 mins of delay since the “Geek Bus” from the Netherlands was stuck in traffic jams (but I believe they had a good time on the bus, they had Internet connection!!).

So, @silentjohnny, @geeroc and @kucborski together with the other organisers (sorry guy I forgot your name/twitters - I would be very please to add them here if you just tell me!) to introduce the journey and to help us to break the ice. So, the after the introduction, the guys queued up again (and well, yes, still in a line!) to propose their talk to the crowd, and the panel got sold old quite soon end, trust me, with no one boring topic!

I won’t describe (now!) every single talk I have being attending, but I would just like to share some keywords that got me impressed: Windows Phone 7, cross-platform, wikiki, WAC, apparat.io and, last but not least, Ripple.

Check them out!

I forgot to mention that I got to finally meet the apparat.io guys @wolframkriesing and @void_0 which also gave a very good insight to their tools and shared a some very cool use-cases of cross-platform apps!

Oh, well, I also have got some gadgets:

Lessons learnt

If I would summarize them in a few words, I would say “A LOT”, but it would be probably not very useful, once, coming back and reading this again.

We all know that every single project you are assigned to is different and similar to all the others you were in the past, sometimes you face new challenges sometimes you don’t. I did.

Every single thing was new to me. The technologies involved, the colleagues and the role. I won’t detail what the project was (or, I should say, is) about but I’d like to say a few words about the role thing.

For the very first time I got some more responsibility then “develop this” or “do this”: I was asked to handle the contacts between the customer and the DEV teams... Not that bad, sounds challenging, I thought. And it is, it really is.

It started with a meeting, first the colleagues from Munich and us, then *us* and the customer. We discussed the feasibility of the project, the technologies to involve and the plan... this scary monster that is putting pressure on you when the time runs out... The meeting was quite good, we agreed an almost everything, some open points would have been discussed later on, and they were. Back to the office *we* formalized the details, I planned my part, they planned their own. One month and a half to deliver. Plan shared with the customer.

The feedback was to shorten the time: our proposed dead line was too far away for the project to be launched. OK, we did review the plan and suggested to deliver in two times, first part with some features and the second with the complete solution but fulfilling the requirements for the mobile part within the first release timeframe. This is it. Till here, no big deal, more or less the normal initiation process of any project.

I really wish it would have gone alright. It did not, and still has come to and end (which is it actually tomorrow). I mean, if it doesn't kill you it makes you stronger, but well.....

Now, what I have learnt is a lot, and, actually, I have learnt all this, and much more, by the mistakes that were made:

• If you don’t know the technology it is going to take longer then you expect. Be careful, unexpected problems, technical issues and high walls to jump through are waiting for you as soon as you turn the next corner.

• Handling the communication with the customer is an hard work. Now, I understand while spending 8 (and often, more then 8) hours in a row in mail exchanges is considered a real job.

• If you need to implement brand new API, don’t do that until they are developed. If you do, be aware: it is like to drive your car following the GPS navigator instructions, but blind.

• If you work within a team dislocated in different offices then yours, you don’t just trust the status meetings, conf calls or whatever you do every day to keep track of the project progresses: get a test environment, test every major feature as it became available and focus on the bug fixing instead on doing it all at the end. Integration testing is relevant. You need it, it needs you!

• if Google your your friend, stackoverflow.com is your best friend.

Ok, this blog post has reached a length not worth to continue, but if I feel inspired anytime soon I will keep the story updated, since I may have some other tales to tell...