Mike Lee is a product engineer in the Netherlands.
Follow @bmf on Twitter. If you have comments, email bmf@le.mu.rs.
For more information about Appsterdam, check out http://appsterdam.rs and follow @appsterdamrs.
People own a lot of crap, and people give a lot of gifts, so it stands to reason that people give and get a lot of crap as gifts. As such, we all own things that we don’t really want, but that we can’t really get rid of, because they were gifts, and there’s a social contract. These are the white elephants.
You can probably think of something like that in your life. Now imagine wrapping that thing and giving it to someone who will love it—or at least share in your horrible fascination for it. The white elephant gift exchange is an attempt to shuffle the gene pool of crap, because one person’s crap is another person’s craving, or something like that.
The best way to determine who gets what is of course in armed combat, but due to Dutch nautical regulations, we’ll end up playing some sort of silly game instead. It should be a lot of fun, and you’ll be surprised the things people will end up fighting over. This is one situation where the giving is definitely better than the getting!
This American tradition will be at the centerpiece of the Appsterdam Holiday Gathering this Sunday, Dec. 18., which will take place at Appsterdam Noord, the Appsterdam Approved Hangout at NDSM Wharf, with a meal on the fabulously adjacent Pannenkoekenboot, because it’s hard to think of anything more Dutch than eating pancakes on a boat.
I’ve given the talk I’m presenting tomorrow, “Product Engineering,” at least four times. I’ve spoken at the conference series I’m presenting at tomorrow, QCon, as many times as well. I don’t know the exact numbers because I speak a lot. I speak so much I had to start the Appsterdam Speaker Bureau to handle all the overlapping invitations.
I’m nervous for tomorrow like it’s the first time.
The importance and complexity of Appsterdam makes every job I’ve had, every product I’ve built, every team I’ve led, seem like practice stones along the road of destiny. So it is with my speaking career and the symbolism of my returning to Silicon Valley after a grand adventure to tell my former compatriots what I’ve found and what I’ve founded.
Let’s keep this in perspective. I’m not addressing the civil rights movement, and I’m not launching the iPhone, but in the very large category of informational technical keynotes? Yeah, definitely, it’s going to be the greatest of all time.
What’s after this, retirement? Maybe pyrotechnics?
QCon San Francisco is sold out. There is a waiting list. If you’d like to request press access, please contact QCon.
The Appsterdam 2 Launch Party Weekend went off without a hitch. As soon as we clear the song rights for the Space Pirate movie, we’ll have a video of the 90-minute keynote online. If audience response is any indication, you will enjoy yourself.
Which is not to say you didn’t miss out if you weren’t there. Feedback from the keynote was universally positive, but it was dwarfed by the positivity people felt for “the vibe,” to use the exact words.
Friday night we got together like we always do at Cafe Bax, except there were way more people, it was Friday instead of Wednesday, and Microsoft bought the drinks. Saturday I delivered the keynote with some dozen guests on stage and by video.
In a deeply symbolic act, I shared the stage with Microsoft and Google and declared that the time of petty politics between platforms, business models, and specialties is over. Now is the time for tolerance and collaboration. Let us put aside our differences and work together.
Together we can make Amsterdam into not just the best place in the world to be an App Maker, but the best place in the world to become an App Maker. People will come to Appsterdam to become App Makers, the way people went to Hollywood to learn to make movies. This will create a surplus of technical labor, which will attract attention from abroad, creating jobs and bringing the world’s knowledge to Appsterdam.
Our Weekly Wednesday Lunchtime Lectures and Guru Sessions let us capture and share knowledge, not just with the world’s foremost experts, who are each making their way through Amsterdam in turn, but also with each other, providing training for the Appsterdam Speaker Bureau.
The craziness of Museumnacht was made even crazier as a group of Knowmads led a larger group of Appsterdammers on a whirlwind tour of the city’s many strange museums. Judy and I ended up giving up our tickets to out of town guests, so we just sort of wandered around. We found a lot of people who had lost the tour and they all had crazy stories to tell.
Sunday that whole vibe thing came into sharp focus as we had our potluck family brunch at the incredible venue, De Balie. Of course, we could never afford De Balie, nor was it available as it was booked by Amsterdam Film Week. We had our brunch in the back offices on a secret floor up a secret elevator.
All because one of the Appsterdammers, Marieke Schoutsen, works at Boven de Balie. One of the main volunteers worked at one of the sponsors, which is how we made the connection. That’s the community taking care of itself. That’s how we develop the vibe that people keep talking about.
Through all this people came to understand that Appsterdam is a paradise for App Makers built by App Makers so they can live in that paradise. There are no ulterior motives here. It’s App Makers all the way down.
And so we come to the close of another Appsterdam Launch Party Weekend. It was an awe inspiring and humbling thing to see the volunteers do their thing, akin to the scene in Fight Club when Jack figures out there are people who work for him who he doesn’t know doing things he doesn’t know about. Let us thank:
Axel Roest
Dan from Chicago
Diederik Hoogenboom
Eugen Martynov
Gavin Morris
Igor Sutton
Jerrol Spier
Judy Chen
Klaas Speller
Laurens Bon
Leonie van de Laar
Louise Koopman
Magnus Dahl
Marga Keuvelaar
Markus Palmanto
Martinus Meiborg
Matt Williams
Matteo Manferdini
Merel Ivens
Olga Paraskevopoulou
Paul Darcey
Robert Sheperd
Ron Jones
Sjoerd van Geffen
Vijay Kiran
I’d like to thank the people who took the time out of their own schedule to get on stage and support what we’re doing here, to strengthen their relationship with the community. In order of appearance:
Marco Bottaro of Sogeti
Dan Nacht of IceMobile
Mark Voermans of Microsoft
Jonathan Wisler of SoftLayer
Jan Gerard Snip of Sping
Lauwerens Metz of Appsterdam Delft
Marleen Stikker of the Waag Society
Don Ritzen of Rockstart
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten of The Next Web
Joris van Mens of Google
Aaron Hillegass of Big Nerd Ranch
I’d like to give a special thanks to the people who joined us from abroad. I spoke to people from the US, the UK, including the Northern Ireland contingent, Germany, France, Italy and a bunch I’m sure I’m forgetting. Thank you all so very much for coming so far to be with us. I hope you had a great time, and that we’ll see you all here again soon.
Finally, none of this would have been possible without a few members of the community donating some resources to make this happen. Let us thank:
Boven de Balie
IceMobile
Knowmads
Microsoft
Pakhuis de Zwijger
SoftLayer
Sogeti
We’ll see you in Summer 2012 for the Appsterdam 3 Launch Party Weekend.
By all indications the first course at Big Nerd Ranch Appsterdam was a smashing success. I have every reason in the world to be biased, but the studentsarehappy and the boss is happy, so I’m happy too. The next Big Nerd Ranch Appsterdam course will be December 2-9.
Now I can say without reservation that if you miss this weekend’s Appsterdam 2 Launch Party Weekend, you’re missing the nerd party of the year. I would say the nerd party of the decade, except at this rate I’m assuming we’re going to have an Appsterdam 3 Launch Party Weekend next spring.
This is important: we’re about to blast this information to the media, so the quickly dwindling available slots are going to run out fast. We are expecting the events to fill up quickly, so you need to act now and be sure to RSVP. If you’re not on the list there’s a very good chance you’ll be waiting outside.
You’ll notice I always refer to App Makers and App Making. When Apple responded to Intellectual Venture in the guise of Lodsys, they referred to us as App Makers, and I liked the respect and legitimacy it engendered.
As for App Making, it goes back to what my journalism mentor, R.G. Gould, once said about the First Amendment: “You owe your living to it. You better damn well capitalize it.”
