By: Eric Lewis
As a first time attendee to FileMaker DevCon, I could easily describe my arrival in one word… Overwhelmed. Unsure of who I would meet or what kinds of conversations and sessions I would be taking part in gave me that sense of being very new to the community of FileMaker. However, all of that melted away very quickly with seeing the people gathering for the first event and seeing how actively they all conversed amongst one another. Every person I met from DevCon greeted me as an equal and a fellow explorer in the world of FileMaker, they welcomed me into the conversations and offered great advice for a newer developer in the community.
I met many people during the event and learned a lot of new techniques for developing custom solutions. The information I took away not only from the sessions but the side conversations with people from different backgrounds and companies has given me a new outlook on the FileMaker community. This isn’t just a community of developers who are working to grow their business and be the best, it’s a community of people from the top down who want to help develop talent in every developer and user of FileMaker.
My personal advice to any future developers who may attend DevCon for their first time is to not be afraid to ask questions and engage in conversations. After your sessions are over and the day is winding down, find a group of people who have a similar business as yours and see if they have any plans or if they would like to meet up and have a pow wow of ideas. To describe one such “pow wow” I had found myself in conversation with some other attendees who were involved with project management, we collaborated on different views and uses of project management within FileMaker. They openly shared their ideas and welcomed mine as we conversed for hours; although not a formal conversation you could tell everyone involved was passionate about the topic. So if fear of fitting in keeps you from attending FileMaker DevCon don’t let it. Join this amazing community with open arms. Who knows maybe we will end up sitting down and engaging in good conversations about this amazing development community!
