Sunday 15 July 2012

Wireless Field Day 3

Recently I was invited to join a star-studded, able-bodied talented crew of Wi-Fi social media folk at Wireless Field Day 3. Happy, eager, enthusiastic, thrilled, and animated – they’re all words. Specifically, according to Microsoft Word, they’re synonyms for how I felt when I received the invite – (ridiculously) excited!

By now most of you are probably familiar with the Tech Field Day events but if you’re not, let me fill you in. The Tech Field Day’s are a series of independent events that allow vendors to present their wares and nifty technology to a group of social media folk who are active in that particular field. In turn, these bloggers and tweeters provide their own thoughts and analysis based on the vendor presentations. One of the aspects of the Tech Field Days that really surprised me was how professionally the events are filmed. Check out the video’s from Wireless Field Day 1 and Wireless Field Day 2 to see what I mean!

As most of my experience has been focused on Cisco, I look forward to checking out some of the competition and offering some insight into what they can offer. So far Meraki, Ruckus Wireless and WildPackets have been confirmed, with more to come.

Due to the relative dearth of engineers specializing in Wi-Fi, I felt like I was on a virtual Wi-Fi island in Australia. Whilst I have worked with a number of excellent engineers in other areas of networks and been able to throw ideas back and forth with them, when it came to Wi-Fi, I have had to turn to Twitter in the last year to continue the Wi-Fi conversation that was previously confined to my own head! Below are some of the folk who have helped end my Wi-Fi insanity with a few new names throw in – all of whom I look forward to meeting come September. The delegates for Wireless Field Day 3 are:

Ryan Adzima A Boring Look @radzima
Tom Carpenter CWNP @carpentertom
Sam Clements SC-WiFi @samuel_clements
Daniel Cybulskie Simply WiFi @SimplyWiFi
Rocky Gregory Intensified @bionicrocky
Jennifer Huber I ♥ WiFi @JenniferLucille
Blake Krone Digital Lifestyle
NSA Show
@blakekrone
Chris Lyttle WiFi Kiwi’s Blog @wifikiwi
Sean Rynearson WiFiGeeks @Srynearson
Scott Stapleton Phased Coexistence @scottpstapleton
George Stefanick my802.11 @wirelesssguru
Gregor Vučajnk Not your fathers WiFi @gregorvucajn

Now I just need to stock up on kangaroo-themed tea towels, Crocodile Dundee themed merchandise from the 80s and any other clichéd Australian cr quality goods that I can find!