I recently attended my second 
All Things Open conference and wanted to share some of the observations, experiences, and lessons I learned along the way.
As conferences go, All Things Open stands out to me for a few reasons. Hosted at the Raleigh Convention Center in North Carolina, it’s one of the few larger shows that doesn’t sit in a wallet-busting city. And, at ~5,000 attendees, it’s definitely one of the more significant events, standing out from events like DevOpsDays, BSides, and even Monitorama, which attract much more modest crowds. And, of course, it stands out because of its focus. While every event — from the aforementioned DevOpsDays all the way up to the monster conferences like Cisco Live, VMware Explore, and re:Invent — contain an acknowledgment of the importance of open source tools, none of those events are so wholly and wholesomely focused on the tools, techniques, and community that make open source the powerful force for good that it is.