Org brings people together!

[John Hendy <jw.hendy@gmail.com>]

Hi all,


Just wanted to celebrate the fact that 3M (where I work [1]) was able
to host Prof. John Kitchen last week to give two talks: one on his
work in catalysis, touching on modeling molecular interactions, and a
second one about reproducible research with Org-mode.

At 3M we have chapters, which I describe like college clubs, but
organized around different technology topics. These are volunteer
groups responsible for some ~450 events per year at 3M Center in St.
Paul, MN. The events are things like internal product/technology
talks, vendor presentations, poster sessions, and hosting professors.

When I saw John's mention scimax [2] maybe a year ago and realized he
works in an area where we have such a chapter (catalysis), as well as
works with Org-mode (relevant to our software chapter), I started
scheming and pitched that we invite him. Fast forward a few back and
forths about timing later, followed by a sabbatical at Google, and
revisiting the idea... and it finally happened!

Sadly, I missed the Org talk (CTO was presenting at the same time),
but I did go to the first and was able to join him for dinner. I admit
that the others at dinner were not quite as programm-y as we were, and
might have been playing along laughing we got into the inevitable vim
vs. emacs jokes. We were quite amused, though.

John will be the second person I've met on the user list. I met Erik
Iverson, a long-time user, back in 2011. Turns out he was running the
Twin Cities R User Group here and we ended up co-organizing together
for a couple years.

So far, Org-ers have been 100% awesome in person, and I look forward
to running into more down the road. Anyway, just felt like a fun bit
of news to share, and hopefully you all can nerd out about Org in
person at some point too!

It was great to meet you John, great work, great talk, and I look
forward to digging into scimax more soon!


Best regards,
John

[1] If 3M isn't immediately recognizable, you might know it for some
of it's bigger brands/products like Scotch Tape, Command Strips,
Post-It Notes, Filtrete filters, and Scotch-Brite.

[2] https://github.com/jkitchin/scimax