Five reasons why the premiere of the orcharhino Summit was a complete success

Actually, everything was planned completely differently: On April 23rd, 2020, orcharhino users and interested parties were supposed to meet with consultants and developers in our office in Garching. A personal exchange and exciting discussions about our tool for data center automation were planned. But then Corona came and we had to reschedule

This is how our first orcharhino Summit also became our first virtual event. To get straight to the point: the premiere was a success. Below we will show you five reasons why:

1. No cancellation: We want to exchange ideas with customers, interested parties and the open source community with regular events such as the Linux regulars’ table or the OSAD. This is not possible in times of contact restrictions. But since we don’t want to do without it, virtual meetings are a good way to stay in touch.
2. No travel for participants and speakers: Even though we would have liked to meet the participants and speakers in person, the unnecessary travel certainly contributed to the success of the orcharhino Summit. For example, our speaker Frank Recker was able to give his highly acclaimed lecture on “orcharhino & Windows” without having to travel from Paderborn to Munich. For the same reason, many people who would have found it very difficult to be there in person certainly decided to take part.
3. Large audience: As already described, we were able to increase the number of participants due to no longer having to travel. On the other hand, we broadcast the orcharhino Summit via live stream on YouTube. We sometimes had 70 participants at the same time.
4. Participants can set key topics together: Interactive tools such as sli.do or Mentimeter make it possible to identify focal points together with the participants. With these tools, participants can make suggestions themselves, but can also vote on the relevance of given topic aspects. The most voted points were then discussed, explained and debated.
5. Personal feedback session despite social distancing: Of course, a virtual meeting cannot replace a face-to-face meeting. Nevertheless, video conferences and chat functions enabled us to have personal exchanges with the participants.

All in all, we can say that our first virtual conference was a complete success and we are happy to take up the format again in the next few months. Our thanks go to all participants and especially the speakers Jan Bundesmann, Bernhard Suttner, Frank Recker (Benteler), Martin Zimmer (Fujitsu) and Thomas Merz for their participation in our pilot project.

We are currently working on the video recordings and follow-up to-dos. We would like to make these available to you as quickly as possible.