I’m sitting in the domestic departures terminal of the Cluj Airport. Used to the traffic in Bucharest, I left as soon as the workshop ended, hoping to catch my flight. I was surprised to be in front of my departure gate 30 minutes after I left the workshop. Now I hope I can also finish a blogpost before I board the plane.
Leaving in a hurry also meant I missed the final group photo of the conference. Not that I’m too photogenic or attention-seeking, but that’s a group I was happy to be a part of.
And it’s a wrap. Thank you, everyone, for making this edition so so special!#MobOS2019 pic.twitter.com/DEVtoIGj65
— RO MobOS (@romobos) February 16, 2019
My highlights of this conference, as an iOS developer, were the talks by Andrea Cipriani, Paul Hudson and Ellen Shapiro, and Jorge Ortiz’s workshop. I didn’t know Andrea before, but Esteban warned me, and I was super impressed by his talk. Fast pace, very clear, straight to the point, all while keeping the audience interested and connected. Paul Hudson was no surprise, I saw him before, he’s probably the most entertaining speaker that the iOS community has, and he delivered again. I’ve never seen Ellen talk before, but I’ve known about her for a while. I really enjoyed her talk, which made complex things seem easy. And Jorge is probably one of the best persons to have in a workshop. 👍
Another major highlight for me was meeting some of the best people of the iOS dev community in Cluj. And I include here the people who took care of organizing the conference. I was really impressed by what they do, and I can honestly say they’re great people. I’ve never seen more attention to details and care for the speakers at any other conference. Hats off to them 🙇♂️.
As always, the best track of any conference was the hallway track. I don’t know if that’s valid for everyone, you need to know how to take advantage of the hallway track. There are some great resources out there, that I don’t really have the time to search for now and link here (got to finish this before my plane boards, right? 😅).
I had great interactions during those days with, among others, Dave Verwer, Jorge Ortiz, Dorin Danciu, Bogdan Iusco, David Hart and two great and friendly developer from Croatia who I was happy to give a crash course in the Romanian language. People I’d be very happy to meet again at other events.
MobOS is at its sixth edition. It’s been growing constantly, and it’s getting better and bigger each year. It’s not officially announced, but I know the organizers are already thinking about the next edition. I’d be happy to be able to join again, and I totally advise anyone to keep an eye out for their announcements. You can follow them on Twitter.
Diversity is something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. A quick look over the mobOS speakers list will probably make people say the lineup is not too diverse. I had the same thought, and that’s a feedback I also gave them. Moreover, I offered to help improve this in the next years. They were very receptive and I’m already looking forward to the future.
We want diversity in the speaker lineup to encourage diversity for the attendees. This year, MobOS had by far the most diverse and inclusive list of participants I’ve ever seen.
Writing is hard. And I noticed that sometimes my ideas aren’t too organized. So for this blogpost I chose to follow a style I first saw at Brent Simmon and which, on this moment, suited me better. Hoping I’ll be able to publish this before I board my plane.