Down The Rabbit Hole​

Second time I see Cal doing this talk, and I think it is even better than the first time.

Sometimes I come with high expectations and the real thing can not actually live up to that expectations. This is mostly my problem, because my expectations are extremely high. The thing with Cal is: It does not really matter how high my expectations are, he will always exceed them.

In this talk, Cal shares many (really!) personal stories, and there's so much that I can recognize. It's really good to hear these stories, and they're filled with important lessons. Thank you Cal.

My third time watching this talk - it is always as fun and as inspiring! Thank you, Cal, for the all the positive energy!!!

thanks, inspirating

Inspiring talk!

Very nice talk!

As the others said, nice opening keynote

Fantastic!

Very nice talk!

You got it right.

..

Great talk and very inspiring.

Talk was realy inspiring!

Every time I see Cal speak I walk away inspired, this was no exception.

Great opening of the Phpbenelux, if there is one thing I took away from it it's that we should work in teams and with the help of the community instead of winning the fight alone :-)

The message simple, the presentation compelling - community matters because it helps us achieve what we as individuals cannot do on our own; yet community is made up of individuals like us. Great start to pump everybody up for the conference.

Very nice personal talk, with some moving talk about rolemodels.
It takes a great man to open himself up to so many strangers, very brave!!!

That said, it was pretty much the default keynote talk that can be summarized in "community is great, be a part of it". There was not that much in the talk to differentiate from that.
It is however a message worth repeating.

Impressive keynote. Thanks!

Very inspiring and engaging.

Seems like every conference has a opening (or closing) keynote about the community. I do agree with the message, but it doesn't teach me anything anymore. It would be nice to see something else for a change.

The presentation of this topic was very good, though. Brave to talk about his recently deceased dad.

Very inspirational and motinvational talk thanks!

great and inspiring opening of the conference, did not expect anything less from you!

This was absolutely an inspiring keynote. And as a son with similar pride of his dad that part was absolutely moving. A brave thing to do in front of an audience.
(I would also have loved to hear more about Red Adaire though).

I rate four because the impact on me personally was a little below CodeRabbi's keynote last year, and Eamon Leonard at DPC in 2013 - but maybe I should be able to mark some "exceptional" so I can hand out five stars :-)

Top class opening of the conference!

Keynote-worthy, very inspiring and fun talk to see!

Good keynote, but maybe a bit to long for my taste

School example of a great keynote talk. Overviewing where we are, where we can be and motivating us to move in that direction.

Thank you Cal!

Great keynote!

First of all, I love the organizer's choice for this talk to be keynote. The well-delivered talk really hit the right tone of voice for setting the conference atmosphere. Even though -nearly- everyone in the audience already knew that community is an important part of a dev's job, otherwise they wouldn't be there, the way Cal talked about community really showed there's even more to it.

If you organize a conference or meetup and you can have Cal give this talk, do so!

Interesting talk, but for me it didn't really click.

I completely understand the power of community and understood the message of Cal. However the tweetables felt cheesy to me, I missed the overall structure and some sense of direction. This doesn't mean it's a bad talk, just that I didn't enjoy it as much.

First time I've seen Cal talk and at first I wasn't sure what to expect, besides that it had to be good because it's Cal Evans we're talking about here.

I was not disappointed.

The personal story at the start of the talk threw me a bit off guard, but it was a nice bit of information to understand the motivation behind Cal's push for a stronger community.

Cal is very easy to listen to and seems to be very comfortable on stage. He's a good story teller, resulting in a good fit for the keynote slot in the schedule.

The message of the talk was that people get done more together than alone and that communities are therefore the most important facilitator of growth and innovation. The talk was a bit too lengthy for me (for this message alone), so that makes 4 out of 5 stars.

A very inspirational talk, it was my first time I saw Cal on stage.

As a co-organizer of our local PHP community it was nice to get some first hand experience from one who already knows all about it.

Nothing to add more! Well done.

Inspiring and motivational talk

Wow. If this doesn't leave you inspired, I don't know what will. Excellent stories, solid message and outstanding delivery, always a pleasure to listen to Cal. Thanks!

A nice story that inspires to contribute to a community

Perfect; community, community, community! :)

Awesome as always. Thanks Cal for sharing these stories!

Compliments to Cal, great opening keynote. Personally, I think it was one of the best talks of the conference.

Inspiring, well presented talk.

Entertaining talk. I'm not a great contributor, but this talk me realise how much I enjoy little things like reporting a bug or doing a small pull request.

The talk itself wasn't bad, maybe a bit too "american" for my taste. But it wasn't great either: The subject is one that's kind of a theme among keynotes the last year (or 2), and kind of plainly presented if I compare it to others. Though I fully agree with the message, I wasn't as inspired as I think I should have been.