Socrates Canaries 2018

This year, I had the pleasure to attend my second Socracan, an unconference organised in the Canary Islands that brings together people from the Craft Community. This conference had been organised in the past by the Software Crafters community in Canary Islands and most of the great groundwork done by them has been really helpful in. On this point I would like to give my personal perspective as an organiser jumping from the bench.

As I live away from the islands, I could not help with most of the preparations that took place before the event. I would like to thank my colleagues Dácil and Miguel for that. My objective was to be of support at the event and I have to say that apart from providing materials and setting a few things up I had not much else to do. That is something I did not expect and I believe that is one of the great things of this event.

When you have such a great facilitator as Adrian Perreau and such a great group of attendees, magic is there just waiting to happen and every moment lived with the group is a learning opportunity. I would like to thank Tobias Goeschel for helping with the Open Space rules, Jason Peper for always going the extra mile and publishing the program online, Rubén for becoming another backup organiser just like me and everyone else that attended because in the end, the community is what makes the event worth it :)

As with any event, not only the talks and workshops are the only opportunities for taking a learning pill back home. Conversations in the halls, on the beach, over dinner or over coffee are one of the reasons why I will be back next year. The quality of the talks was amazing and with many formats, there were roundtables to share experiences about remote working, creating a community with a culture of learning and how the movement can become more inclusive. Wolfram Kriesing presented us his experience in teaching TDD to kids taking away all the noise and boiling it down into a spreadsheet and Tobias made a great Event Storming express workshop.

But at Socracan there was also time for partying! Our colleague Dácil and her band Heisenberg rocked the stage in one of most iconic venues in the city. Thanks Carlos for organising it :)

As with any event, there were things that worked better than others. That is why we have written down all the feedback given during and after the event, and we are open to any suggestions for the next event. See you next year :)