IT Night on Ivan Kupala

IT Night on Ivan Kupala

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I spent this weekend at a major “я-ИТ-ы” community event called “ИТ-ночь на Ивана Купалу” (“IT Night on Ivan Kupala”).

I am still deeply impressed by the event. Everything about it was remarkable: its scale, the standard of organisation, the amount of information, the engagement of everyone involved, and the openness and warmth of absolutely everyone there.

As the mentor of one of the newcomers, I sat an exam on the “я-ИТ-ы” community’s code of ethics. The code contains plenty of worthy principles along the lines of “do good and do nothing bad”. In particular, it includes these rules: “Equal and open communication among all members of the ‘я-ИТ-ы’ community. It does not matter whether you are the IT director of a huge state corporation or a small company, or a vendor or integrator invited to the event. It does not matter how many people report to you, how large your budget is or how wealthy you are personally. Every member of the community tries to help through advice and action. If they cannot help themselves, they find and pass on the contact details of someone who can.”

I saw first-hand that these are not just words, but principles that every member of the community follows. Over those two days, I freely approached anyone there, asked questions and received detailed, expert answers, no matter how busy they were. The openness, mutual support and willingness to help were so wonderful that I am still trying to process a weekend so packed with emotion and information.

My beloved managerial duels were part of the event too, but I will write about those next time…