A few impressions from our first trip abroad, to the German city of Chemnitz for the Linux-Tage conference.
We've had an English website for a while, and you can switch the administration interface's language too, so nothing now prevents English-speaking people from abroad from joining us. We already had a few, but they had to ask Czech friends to help them register. That barrier is gone; now we just need to get the word out abroad.
We tried it for the first time over the weekend. We printed large English posters, made a stack of leaflets, packed the car and drove to Chemnitz (Saská Kamenice in Czech), Saxony's third-largest city. A small table awaited us at the back of the exhibitors' hall, between the buffet and the toilets, so visitors were constantly passing by.
The conference attracts around 3000 people each year, with all its content in German. It isn't really geared towards foreign visitors, but fortunately that didn't deter us. Everyone spoke very good English, so whenever someone stopped to look at our server, posters or photos on the screen, we started a conversation, introduced the association and handed over a leaflet with the basics.
I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by how welcoming people were. Everyone was friendly, asked lots of detailed questions, and was clearly interested. Other exhibitors came over too, curious about who we were and what we were doing there. When we explained that we're an independent association of people running VPSes, they were enthusiastic.
We explained how the organization works, and that we're connected to DE-CIX in Frankfurt, putting us only a few milliseconds away. What interested people most was that we're also a good enough solution for many businesses. One man enthusiastically pulled a can of Kofola from his bag and left it with us. "Hi, Czechs!" he called as he left. Kofola used to host its websites with us too, by the way.
I gave the only English talk, explaining vpsFree.cz to several dozen people, showing photos and adding some technical details. We had plenty of time left for questions, which was good: the audience asked about funding, ways to use VPSes, the technologies involved and much more.
Conferences like these bring us contacts, let us meet real users, and can attract new members. We've long known that results take time and the effect lasts a long time. Even so, several people from Germany registered during the event. One was enthusiastic about us on Saturday, became a member that evening, and returned the next day with more questions and to say thanks. "Oh, you're Felix, who registered last night?" "Yes, that's me!"