Down the Rabbit Hole: Lessons Learned combining Career and Community.

As a PHP developer for about 15 years but never introduced to the community until recently, your words rang true in so many ways. I really wish I had been more involved all these years and I hope the younger devs really take the advice to heart.

The cleanup hitter does it again. He's such a well practiced speaker, it's really quite something to see Cal Evans do his Thing in person. And yes, Cal has successfully inspired this guy to get involved with the local PHP community!

Each keynote by Cal Evans I go to is the best one, I have no idea how he does that! I think the oil fire guy/team analogy was amazing! Many a thumb up! Rock on, Cal!

That was an awesome talk by mister PHP community. This is a talk that every developers should see. I hope it gets recorded so I can share it around. Really energetic, Cal is at ease on stage and it shows.

Amazing keynote on the power of community & role models. Thank you for all you've done for the community and for serving as a role model to those of us working for the community.

I want to bottle / record this and give it to every single developer or aspiring developer I come across. As usual Cal comes across as inspiring and genuine. He stresses that community played a crucial part of his career and he couldn't be more right.

Very good keynote. Really enjoy it. Remember, when there are not community you are the community.

Cal owned it as always. Such an incredible, emotional and energizing talk. While this talk works amazingly as a closing keynote (with direct actionable content for attendees to go home with), I wonder if it would be better put as an opening keynote. The community drive could be very energizing and motivating and give the overarching theme to the entire conference.

Next time, charge the cell phone first :-P

What can you say? Thanks Cal for an amazing, inspiring and entertaining talk.

Cal wouldn't be the big Cal Evans if he didn't mix emotions with sanity and providing the attendees a rich blend of food-for-thought, call-to-action and plain, simple wisdom-to-go.

A true hero of the community

Superb talk - very uplifiting and inspiring.

Cal's a big jerk for making everyone cry.

Once I got past that, though, all I can say is: anybody who thinks development is just about code needs to see this talk. Development in any language only exists in social constructs, and without happy, engaged, developers who are actively and pro-actively sharing their knowledge, the language and its ecosystem will disappear. PHP has built a great community in this regard, and Cal will show you why.

Cal speaks with such passion! His keynote was motivational and inspiring! Thanks Cal!

Amen, Reverend! Community is what makes or breaks any technology, and it's good people that build good communities. Cal is definitely one of those good people. :-) Definitely an inspiring talk, and I'm in the process of rewriting one of my own talks as a result. (Damn you for giving me more work.)

And MWOP: It's not Cal that made us cry. It's the power of the community. Cal was just a conduit for the awesomeness that is a strong, vibrant community.

2/5, not enough cat pictures.

One of the best keynotes of a conference. I might have preferred it as the opener, which would get people motivated to branch out and mingle and build the community that was there at the conference, but the talk is just as effective when it's telling people to go home from the conference and get involved in the community.

Awesome!.. makes me very proud to be a local UG organizer.
Sometimes our work goes unnoticed, but Cal's words make us push ourselves to create a better community.

Thanks Cal, nice to meet you.

The typical strong Cal voice, to the emotional stories and the talking about community this became an amazing keynote. I can't give any critical feedback because it was all spot on. Thanks, every developer should see this! :)

Didn't like the call-to-actions (slides marked "tweetable"); I don't need to be told what I should tweet. Very much preaching to an in-crowd, clearly the audience is well-seeded with major fans (worshipers?) but for someone new to SunshinePHP and having never heard of Cal Evans before, it was a bit weird. Left me feeling like I've crashed their special party.

Ironically this feeling of not being part of the in-crowd is counter to the talk's strong message of community...

A very inspiring talk. I only wish I could've heard something like this sooner if only to better appreciate the fantastic community that PHP has,