The Chaos Communication Congress is the hugest convention and festival for hackers on the continent. Its part 5-9 track lecture conference, part massive parallel soldering and other workshops, part dance party and part carneval. I liked especially the one guy, just walking around while making music on it's novation circuit - but there was so much going on - he was hardly noticeable. Because it was gigantismic. When even a small self made booth for baking dough (one of several dozens food stands) sells over a ton (literally > 1000 kg), serving > 13000 people, it earned its name: waffle operation center (WAP). But that's the spirit and humor around here.



To me personally 36C3 was my first and I think not my last CCC. Half of my time I spent at the Perl and Raku booth, programming current projects and answering questions. Here is what I learned from that. Most Questions where about Perl 6 and the recent Raku rename. but other than that:

Don't apologize. You like/love Perl that's about it. Details people didn't knew before are far more interesting. Be honest with weaknesses and strengths and try to be up date. Have an answer for the big questions. It sucks repeating sentences but you have to have well thought out reason why you prefer Perl for instance (this came frequently). Many people are curious and an enlightening answer tailored to the asking person achieves a lot more than best PR-material. That includes have even some knowledge about areas you normally do not cover. Explain motivation. Perl has weaknesses but all for reasons.Reasonable people know that you in life always weigh pros vs cons and if you give them realistic hints, they appreciate it. And even the strengths shine even more if one understands the motivation behind them. So you have to at least looked into the classic books or know some perldoc by heart. Most of the technical info is on the net and can be read. Use the opportunity to also talk about the bits you usually don't read about. Tread the audiences like potential Perl mongers.



As a general communication strategy I found three points I want to share here, because there were understood and accepted by most people I talked to.