While wandering the corridors of the LISA conference I noticed that there are quite a few conference attendees wearing LISA shirts from previous years dating all the way back to 1998. In addition to the fantastic feat of maintaining a single article of clothing in a wearable state for over 10 years, I became curious as to what the motivation is for conference attendees to continue to return for so many years.

After speaking with a few of these LISA veterans there is an apparent common thread amongst returnees: the people. There are very few technology-related conferences in the world that have the breadth and wealth of information that is present at LISA. Conference presenters are consistently the leaders, authors, and experts in the field of system administration. This provides an advantage when seeking feedback, ideas, and solutions to problems on technologies that are used by systems administrators worldwide. By going to the source of the technology we use and meeting the people behind the scenes, it opens up a whole new world for those involved in the field of technology.