I have finally returned from the IALLT conference. All told, the conference was a success. When we first arrived, we were a little concerned that we couldn’t recoup our investment because it was such a small gathering. What we didn’t count on was the high signal to noise ratio. At the ACTFL, we got a lot of hit and runs, but not at IALLT. There were only a few hundred people in attendance, but we got a lot of genuine interest and we were actually able to have helpful, informative conversations with conference goers rather than quick sales pitches. So thank you IALLT planners and attendees for a good experience in Atlanta Georgia.
The less awesome part of the conference was the transportation. To save money, Nick and I drove, which turned out to be an exhausting, but cost effective choice. Upon leaving, I took the long way home and visited my girlfriend for 2 days in Durham NC and got back yesterday at midnight. And lo and behold, our new intern was in our midst! Hoorah!
Maksym was one of our first and most dedicated users. Back when Skritter was but a smearing of pixels across a crudely formatted page, he sought us out and began deluging us in helpful feedback. After months of this intensive treatment, the comments trailed off, and then there was silence. For a few weeks it was as though we’d lost a good friend. But then, he emailed us and the reason for his silence became known. He had turned to his love of Japanese, and Skritter could no longer help him in his foreign language journey. But he kept emailing us with thoughts and suggestions. Then several months ago he suggested that he come and intern with us for the summer. The rest is of course history. He is the first outlander to join us in our command center, and he brings with him knowledge of Japanese and python. He’s currently working to improve the scheduling and later he’ll be helping us build the Japanese version of Skritter. So everyone bid a fond welcome to Makysm Taran. We’ll be updating the team page shortly with a picture of him so that you can bask in his awesome visage.
Today Scott, Maksym, and I worked on formatting the new custom list builder, and we hope to have it out later this week. It’s gonna be great.