There is nothing like meeting another Nightscout user. Just something about the shared experience, the rogue cowboy status, the knowing that that person knows exactly how you feel on an almost daily basis. It’s a wonderful thing. Now, how about meeting 50 or so? Maybe more? What if you lost count? It’s almost overwhelming.
That was my feeling last Wednesday evening as we closed up the exhibit hall at the Children with Diabetes Friends for Life (FFL) conference last week. We had just completed a three hour stint on the conference show floor, and we had finished up two incredible work sessions for folks that were interested in setting up Nightscout. Those were led by the dynamic duo of Christine Deltrap and Kate Farnsworth (two past recipients of the Visionary Award,) and supported by Ben West & Kevin Lee. We managed to get around a dozen folks installed or updated, and we had a lively discussion around the project and the community. It was a great start to the conference, and I cannot thank that group enough.
Over the course of a few days, we managed to meet and visit with hundreds of folks that either have Nightscout, wanted Nightscout, or just had heard about the project and wanted to learn more. I also had the opportunity to visit with representatives from groups like the Bionic Pancreas project, Pump Peelz, Tidepool, and Type Zero. And of course, I got to visit with some of the good friends I’ve personally made over the last 15 months as part of this project.
One of the big questions that kept coming up is, “What’s next?” My general answer is, “I don’t know, I’m waiting for someone to tell me,” but I think I can offer you some hints. When we started the Foundation, one of the primary goals was to leverage the power of the community. To offer services and resources that might be difficult to receive as individuals. Over the course of FFL, that goal started to come to fruition. While I can’t be more specific just yet, know that we are working behind the scenes this week, following up and chasing down ideas to make Nightscout easier than ever to setup, and to make it easier than ever to develop and test against.
Finally, let me extend a heartfelt thank you to Weston. He pulled our entire representation at FFL together, created so much of the artwork you saw in pictures, broadcast and tweeted and facebooked the whole thing, and did every bit of it with a smile for the next person in line. I’ve done tradeshows way too much in my career, and I’ve never seen someone tackle the chaos and the challenge with as much good humor and good will as he did. I’m humbled to work with him on this project, and I am in his debt for making our FFL trip such a success.
Thank you to everyone that visited us at FFL, or posted on the FB group to offer encouragement. You are why we do this.