Barcamp Cork Secret Handshakes

COUNTING DOWN THE WEEKS until Barcamp Cork III, I'm ruminating over five secret handshakes observed during past events.

1. Don't expect to get a handshake next to the coffee dock. Approaching someone randomly when they're circling the sugar and milk is never a good option for a meet and greet. It's better to face off your prospective friend with cup in your hand. That way you won't be mistaken for a queue jumper.

2. Don't hit up Pat Phelan or Conor O'Neill for a handshake when they're in the middle of a phone call because a horde of people will be upset that your interruption reduced the lunch run to ten dozen soggy plain cheese pizzas.

3. Don't tap someone on the shoulder and expect a handshake when they're intently watching lines of code scroll down on a laptop screen. You could break the concentration of the world's leading spam assassin and that might collapse hundreds of mail servers across the world.

4. Don't think the number on a calling card that you got instead of a handshake is a number you can use for anything except voice mail if you're not being followed on Twitter by the person names on the business card.

5. At least one week before the event, convert your Twitter avatar to something that looks like your face. Then remind me to do the same and we'll both be closer to getting a secret Cork handshake when at Barcamp Cork III.

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Barcamp Cork III is set for Saturday 14 November 2009 in the airport deco Cork Airport Hotel.

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