I landed at Write-Speak-Code just a couple of weeks after AdaCamp, and boy, it did not disappoint. The group was slightly smaller than AdaCamp’s and more training-focused. I had to miss the second day (Speak day!) to go to my brother’s high school graduation, but to make up for it, I took a lot of notes on Days One and Three.

Highlights of the conference:

• The Op-Ed Project’s training that encouraged participants to write and submit newspaper op-eds
• Pondering on what makes a person a “resource” vs. an “expert.” Wait — although many women are hesitant to call themselves experts, they may be one and the same! I particularly liked the idea about how “keeping your knowledge to yourself — no matter how “unexpert” you are — can be selfishness.”
• Learning about the different types of licenses — FreeBSD vs. MIT License vs. GNU vs. CopyLeft, etc.
• Resources for finding open-source projects: http://bit.ly/FindingOSSProjects
• Learning about SQL injection, password storage, and Cross Site Scripting (XSS) from a security expert
• Hearing from many amazing women personally about their open source contributors, technology book deals, and conference speaking activities

My full notes are on my github account: https://github.com/lpatmo/writespeakcode-linda