This summer, we had an internal conference in Burgundy, France. The goal was to get away, and to reflect on the last 5 years of JUXT, and to plan our vision for the future. We also wanted to swap technical insights, and to do some coding on our various open source libraries.
Alongside our noble goals, we also dedicated time towards understanding the local wine and cheeses, hiking, and other activities that would grow our human spirits.
We bought and cooked our own food, and we stayed in a remote location surrounded by forests near Vezelay, in a hunting lodge previously owned by Vauban, a French military engineer, built by monks in the 12th century.
We visited vineyards in Beaune, a fantastic restaurant in Irancy, hiked into Vezelay, and talked with some of the local wine producers near us. We brought back a small haul.
We also launched the JUXT drone. It climbed high and had a happy life, albeit a brief one. We are still retrieving the footage.
During the week, we gave a series of talks that we will publish in time.
These included a meditation on GraphQL and Clojure by Oliver Hine, looking at his latest libraries martian and re-graph. Effective Altruism by Hugo Jacobs on how to give to charities effectively and wisely, Database Indexing Techniques by Patrik Karlin, Yoga philosophy by Andrew Jackson, Malcolm on the Freedom of Constraints, with Matt Butler on The Argument for Inline, and more.
It was good to get away and to spend time talking and thinking, to recharge the company battery. After the last five years of founding the company, we needed to spend time reflecting and looking forwards.
We have some exciting plans. A company internal conference is certainly a rewarding endeavour we’d like to repeat.
More pictures available on our company Instagram
