Guest Post - Phillip Banks - SCALE 11x FOSS Tours

SCALE is not your grandfather’s convention so neither should the experience be. There are a lot of exhibitors to see and too many things you want to get your hands on. Our two full ballrooms of exhibits can be overwhelming to some. All our exhibitors want you to hear about their product, solution or mission and we definitely have worked hard to get the people in front of you that offer the most bang for the open source buck. The problem is that usually you might get bogged down with too much information with one and not enough with some of the others before you want to get back to all the great talks or events going on.

For that reason we have been making an exciting feature we call our SCALE tours. What we’d like to offer you is a fun filled walk through both sides of the convention that will be the best couple minutes you’ve ever had at a convention. I (Phillip Banks) will take groups on a trip that passes a lot of cool places and people and asks them to give you two minutes of “absolute open source goodness.” Exhibitors have come to love the attention it brings so they come prepared with lots of goodies like t-shirts, demo media and maybe a song, dance or some other random act of weirdness that you just don’t get anywhere else. The best part about the tour is that you come out of it with a snippet of what is going on and will probably have a list of exhibitors that you want to go back and talk to for more information or products you want to return and get.

Last year we added a kids tour so feel free to bring your children. SCALE has a kids track -- SCALE: The Next Generation -- so children can come and learn how to do all kinds of cool things with their computers. After their class we take them out on the floor and it’s unbelievable how much they love all the stuff the exhibitors have that is focused on raising the next generation of techies. I vouch for it myself because my own 10 year old daughter is among the bunch and opened her bag like it was Halloween candy.

So, come on out and ask about the tours at the registration desk. If you’ve been before you already know how fun it can be.