For me, one of the great things about this year's Advisory Board meeting, the day after GUADEC, was the all-out telling-off that IBM's Greg Kelleher gave us when he rushed in at the end after seeing a customer.

He pointed out that the big GNOME deployment stories are short on details [1], so they aren't great sales pitches. We don't have information about those deployments because big businesses keep their plans secret.

As I said on our Existing Deployments page, we want believable, compelling stories. It's not enough to know that a story is true – you have to show that it's true by including secondary detail, background, human interest, personalities and hopes. So tell us the stories of the colleges, small businesses, charities, etc, that are using GNOME successfully.

[1] I wanted to link to the bit of the script from The Door In The Floor (or A Widow For One Year) where Eddie goes with little Ruth to demand the photo from the framer. I can't find it online.

Further to yesterday's list, let's have a big box of stuff for GNOME events, and a UPS/Fedex account to send it around. Simple. Don't fear the wiki – add your thoughts.

Could all the speakers please try to link/upload their slides and/or notes on this GUADEC presentations page, please. Fluendo plan to have all their GUADEC video archives online soon too.

GNOME Deutschland want to get serious about our presence at fairs and conferences, such as the following events in Germany. There are a lot of new users out there – we want to rock their world and win them over. This needs some planning, so here's some initial event ideas. Please do add your ideas to that wiki.

I'd like everyone to know how incredibly effective our local volunteers were, and how they saved us from disaster. They made it all possible.

Firstly, Hanno Wagner and Jörg Hoh from Stuttgart gave us complete wireless internet coverage, overcoming several near-catastrophic problems along the way. They set it up in a day or so, and we took it apart again in a couple of hours, returning the Haus der Wirtschaft to the previous century. These are very smart, capable people who can get the job done. I hope we entertained them, and I look forward to seeing them at other events in Germany.

Also, Jessica Moroder parachuted in to organise everything during the conference itself, setting things up, herding the volunteers, and working out details with the building management, never showing a sign of stress. She even lent us a camera for the video streaming. She usually manages TV/film crews on location and is based in Munich. Chaos (even the GNOME kind) has no chance against her and a few walkie-talkies. We should keep her involved.

We also had a lot of volunteers, mostly local, such as Daniel Pisanu (Daniel Pisan_o_ also helped with
the registration database), Julius Bloch, Evangelia Berdou, Roland
Geider, Valerie, Andreas Thienmann, Kilian Krause, Bastian Blank, and many others. They manned the
registration desk and helped with the setup and cleanups. Many didn't know much about GNOME, but they worked incredibly hard, and I think we won them over.

Just taking a moment to blog before I head to Karlsruhe for the weekend to take care of some other stuff. GUADEC was fantastic, intense, and incredibly productive, even though I only got to see about four and a half talks, along with helping to organise it and doing all kinds of board stuff. Combined, with inspirational talks, and very useful Board and Advisory Board meetings, I think the next year will see us really get our act together.

User day was not great, apart from a couple of wonderful talks, but the fixes for that are obvious, and I'll email more about it.

People are probably looking at the new Google Bounties. We had to put these together at the last minute (Well, twenty minutes) in an incredibly creative rush, without the usual consultation. I still haven't had time to look at the final bounties announcements and lists myself yet. Please be assured that any problems/questions are obvious to us and details can/will be worked out in the next few days, as people return from GUADEC.

Also, I now love Nokia and Nokia love us. They so get it.

Also, Jeff hugged me. If that isn't a bright new start, I don't know what is.

Good news. Novell's last-minute sponsorship allows us to make the GUADEC party half-price tomorrow (Monday). That's 10 Euros for entry, a little food, and all drinks until 11pm. You will need your GUADEC name badge to get that deal at the door.

It's nice to see Novell taking over the Ximian party tradition.

I don't understand the details, but maybe you do. Joerg Hoh mentions that they need a particular adaptor and/or suitable replacement 11a access point to make the internet connection to the building across the road. Maybe someone can find/lend something? Comments to him, not me, please.

Don't forget that Nokia and Stuttgart Business Region are giving a GUADEC speakers' reception tomorrow (Saturday) at 7pm.

I'm off to GUADEC soon, probably visiting Karlsruhe tomorrow along the way. I'll arrive in Stuttgart early Saturday morning for the GNOME Foundation board meeting, then es geht los on Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday,

This year's GUADEC has been stressful to organize, largely because we haven't communicated well enough together, and because we didn't get all the local support that we'd planned on. However, the Open Source Region Stuttgart and bwcon have helped us out with many details, in addition to providing the venue and generally dealing well with the amorphous social entity that is GNOME. I do think that this year has shown that most of the GUADEC preparation could be done by a distributed group of people all over the world, with just a few people on the ground, if you have a checklist and a pessimistic schedule.

Most of the infrastructure and organisation on the day is being done by Hanno Wagner and Jörg Hoh, plus the group of locals that they gathered together. They have shown great commitment, energy, and professionalism. It is absolutely verboten that they should ever have to buy their own drinks during GUADEC.

Their are sure to be some problems and irritations on the day, but you can be sure that the volunteers are doing their very best and that we know we are not perfect. The wiki should help you stay informed.

I always arrive at GUADEC stressed and I always leave uplifted. Careful or I might hug you.