Every conference, at least the good ones, has a theme to tease out and lessons to learn. LinuxCon North America 2011 was one of the best, and having the good fortune to be in Vancouver, BC last week for LinuxCon, I learned quite a bit. Now, I'm not just talking about technical stuff. There were plenty of great technical sessions and case studies. For instance, I learned quite a bit about Oregon State University's Open Source Lab (OSUOSL) during Lance Albertson's talk Friday. But what I'm talking about are the larger lessons and themes that come out of a conference. When you get a bunch of people in an industry together, you often find some larger trends worth thinking about. LinuxCon was definitely no exception.