BCLA8 postponement

[Chris "RockNRollGeek" Darbro]

Just noticed that for some reason this didnt send to the list last
time I sent it. But I'll copy paste below for those who missed the
announcement on twitter, barcampla.org, etc...

----
We hate to do this, and more so are sorry about the late notice, but
BarCampLA 8 is going to be postponed a couple months.

We’re looking at the possibility of January, we’re just making sure we
can find a date with the least amount of conflicts that makes sense.
But I’m sure what you’d all really like to know is, “Why is BarCamp
postponed?”

There are a lot of reasons, the big ones currently being resources,
economy, and time. When it comes to us, the organizers, it’s been an
interesting time of year. I myself have been slaving away on work and
projects to pay my bills. In addition, im currently in the middle of
moving to a new place, which has taken time from BarCamp planning.
Similarly, our own Jeremy Kitchen recently just closed on/bought a
brand new home, and has been handling that craziness and moving with
his busy work schedule being a kick ass network jedi of sorts for the
fine folks over at Dreamhost. In addition, Bronwyn has been focused
on going back to school while working full time as well, big props to
her on that! We brought on Alex, who’s done a great job at our
planning meetings as well as managing some of the flow of things we
needed to do, and Shannon is still our resident food-ninja, and is
quite the ace at it. :-)

As crazy as our schedules were, we had some great momentum in making
this happen, but in the end, lack of being able to grab a decent venue
was what did us in. We contacted many prospective venues, but each
time got responses of either ‘we’re not interested right now, check
back in the future’, responses involving not wanting to do it due to
economical/financial reasons, it not being the particular venue’s
‘conference season’ and this not being available, or that weekend
already being set aside for something or booked already for that
venue.

So what does this mean?

Some really great things, actually. It means you, the attendees and
BarCampLA community, will be getting a much better BarCamp experience
than what we would have been able to provide you with the original
November dates. Our respective schedules and free time should be
rebounding soon, and we are dedicated to making this BarCampLA better
than any previous BarCampLA to date. Bigger, better venue than before,
more spaces and options, and other bits of feedback we’ve gotten from
all of you on the BarCampLA mailing list, are all in the works.
There’s also one big change happening we wanted to let everyone know
about..

Starting with the next one, we will be switching BarCampLA back to
being once a year. The first BarCampLA was put together with the
intent of being once a year, much like most BarCamp’s across the US,
and the world. Part of the initial organizers from the first one
decided ‘hey, this is awesome, I want to do another one, let’s get
started now!’, and thus they created BarCampLA2, 6 months
later.There’s a lot that goes into organizing BarCampLA, and a 6 month
schedule invites burnout all too easily, not just for the organizers,
but the attendees as well sometimes, which makes it harder for
everyone to get excited for it and keep that passion. Switching to the
normal once a year schedule will allow us to make the conference
bigger, better, and more valuable to everyone and bring more
excitement to it.

We would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on everything, including the
new changes. Post on the mailing list,
@reply us on twitter, or just comment here on the blog. We’re here for
you, our BarCampLA community, with open ears.

Thanks for your support, everyone!

-Chris, Kitchen, Bronwyn, Alex, Shannon, Your BarCampLA Team

http://www.barcampla.org
http://www.twitter.com/barcampla
http://groups.google.com/group/barcampla

------

[michael...@gmail.com]

No worries, don't take it hard on yourselves. You do a great service
to the community. Will be looking forward to 'el ocho' when it makes
sense.

much love.

lambie

On Nov 2, 4:19 pm, "Chris \"RockNRollGeek\" Darbro"

[scott kelley]

That is a nice tee shirt idea. Barcampla-8 "The Ocho".

On Nov 3, 12:29 am, "michael.lam...@gmail.com"

> >http://www.barcampla.orghttp://www.twitter.com/barcamplahttp://groups...
>
> > ------

[Dave Viner]

After watching Dodgeball last nite... I LOVE this idea. :)

[factoid]

Hey, team:

I, for one, don't blame you guys for having lives. Glad to hear things
are shaping up for the next BC just fine.

But I wanted to reiterate for this thread some thoughts I posted
elsewhere;

As a charter BarCamper (haven’t missed one yet) and frequent trash
volunteer (no jokes please) let me say I think going to once a year is
a big mistake.

This community is so prolific and the evolution of its work – and the
market space – is so virulent and fast, that we’ll be missing out on a
huge amount of innovation that could inform and enrich all of our
working knowledge and personal/professional/creative evolution.

Active BCers will have to choose now from among twice as many cool
projects/ideas the ones that deserve their one or two presentation
slots, and we’ll miss out on many more of the ones they didn’t show.

As this excellent community grows, shrinking the window through which
we all get to view it is counterproductive, untransparent and, well,
sad.

I hope I speak for more than a few of us in saying let’s shoot to have
the biannual schedule continue.

There is so much we can learn from each other - and only so much we
can learn if we meet just once a year.

- Mack Reed

On Nov 2, 3:19 pm, "Chris \"RockNRollGeek\" Darbro"

[justin kruger]

Everything moves slower in this economy.

Keep up the good work, and take care of your personal lives.

Don't forget about startup weekend.

--
--
Justin Kruger -- Sr. Social Media Software Engineer -

http://jDavid.net
http://twitter.com/jdavid

http://www.linkedin.com/in/jdavid

jDavi...@gmail.com

Anton Freeman: Vincent! How are you doing this Vincent? How have you
done any of this? We have to go back.
Vincent: It's too late for that. We're closer to the other side.
Anton Freeman: What other side? You wanna drown us both?
Vincent: You wanna know how I did it? This is how I did it Anton. I
never saved anything for the swim back.

[heather vescent]

I agree with you on all counts Mack.

I know it's time consuming effort to put on Barcamp and I know that
there is more to life than organizing barcamp. I'm also very happy to
hear about the personal successes of the organizers. However I echo
Mack's statement below (he put it so perfectly and way more tactfully
than I could):

factoid <facto...@gmail.com> wrote:
> As this excellent community grows, shrinking the window through which
> we all get to view it is counterproductive, untransparent and, well,
> sad.

This community is HUGE compared our humble roots. The barcamp
community is the one that keeps me from writing off much of what the
LA Tech community has become. We are real, open, transparent, serving
and creating our community. I am beyond disappointed that the decision
to move this to once a year happened without a conversation with and
blessing of the community.

We each and everyone of us created this community. It is everyone's
responsibility to make barcamp happen. So I am also equally
disappointed that when the barcamp team came across bumps to making it
happen, they were not put out to be solved by the community. (I don't
blame them though I'm upset, traditional event organization is that
way.) Our community resources are vast and I am certain with the
amazing people, allies and companies in this community we can solve
anything we put our heads to. Making barcamp happen in 2 weeks is not
such a huge thing. (I have organized much larger chaotic events in
less time. Ho ho ho.)

I can think of a myriad of solutions to the problems of no space, no
sponsors and the idea that it's too much work to put on two barcamps a
year. But I never knew there were problems. And hey, maybe you don't
want to know how I might solve those problems. But this is my
community too - and I have a responsibility to stand up for what I
think is important and to make it happen. And I will not hesitate to
take up the reins and make something that needs to happen happen for
the good of the community.

I would invite anyone from our community and the organizers of barcamp
to engage in a face to face dialog about these issues, so we as a
community can create the event we need. It is everyone's
responsibility.

Respectfully,

-Heather

On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 7:01 AM, factoid <facto...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

--
Heather Schlegel, heathervescent
I Create the Future
Practical Futurist, Educator, Business Consultant, Network Weaver &
Agent of Cacophony

@heathervescent // www.heathervescent.com

"We must not be afraid of dreaming the seemingly impossible if we
want the seemingly impossible to become a reality." --Vaclav Havel

[Sean Bonner]

Throwing my big mouth into this briefly - the twice a year schedule
barcamp has been on since LABC2 has ruined it and going back to a once
a year schedule, not only like every single other barcamp around the
world but also like every other major conference is the very best
thing the organizers can do to help fix that.

This has nothing to do with being burned out or wanting to have lives,
and everything to do with perception of the attendees. If a conference
happens once a year, it's a major event and often something people
will go out of their way to make sure they don't miss. Twice a year a
more frequent events don't have that and are much more missable with
attendees rarely scheduling plans around them, and the overall feeling
is if you miss it it's no big deal because another will happen before
you know it.

This is a *VERY* different philosophy from reoccurring social events,
but the goal is also different.

Having attended and worked with BarCamp organizers all around the
world, and being one of the organizers of LABC1 I can tell you barcamp
was meant to be a yearly event.

If people feel like the LA community needs something more often then
can set up other events, oh wait, we already have them - geek dinners,
twiistups, mindshares, etc - there is no shortage of events in LA for
geeks who want to socialize with other geeks.

BarCamp isn't the only thing holding the LA community together. It
shouldn't be treated like it is.

I'm currently on a South East Asia Barcamp mailing list where people
are planning out how to travel between 6 different countries in a 4
week span to hit each of the annual barcamps there because they are
such a big deal. I know that people who are in LA often can't be
bothered to go across town to LABC because they know it'll happen
again soon maybe at a more convenient time.

If we need more events, people are free to set up other events. Let
BarCamp be the really big deal event once a year that it's supposed to
be.

-s

--
Sean Bonner
http://www.seanbonner.com - homebase
http://www.metblogs.com - get local
Unless agreed upon, assume everything in this e-mail might be blogged.
Sent from Marina Del Rey, CA, United States

[jozjozjoz]

I can certainly see both sides of the coin, but when push comes to
shove, think once a year is the way to go.

Having spent a good amount of time fundraising for a number of
non-profits recently, I attest to the fact that the economy is really
taking a toll on sponsors. With the size of LABC that it is, we're
really beyond the place where we can get away with throwing such a
large event without them.

Some of the folks I've been hitting up (not about Barcamp, but the
same idea applies) have said to me point blank: I've already donated
to you once this year; that's it.

More than the busy-ness of our awesome organizers, I could see from
their note of how hard a time they're having-- hitting up for
donations and sponsors and coming up with much, much less than we used
to get. It's a different world and the money's not flowing like it
used to. No matter how much we love Barcamp and want to see them
happen more often, the harsh reality is that to get so many people
together in one place in a weekend to do what we're trying to do--
there are overhead considerations and we need sponsors.

Kudos to the Barcamp organizers for already giving so much time and
energy to the cause! When push comes to shove a lot of people talk a
lot of talk about wanting to contribute-- I'm one of them -- but these
gays and gals really go past the "talk" and get things done. They
deserve a lot of credit for putting together some of the best Barcamps
ever so I hope that none of the organizers think any of this
constructive criticism and discussion we're having takes away from how
much we appreciate them!

Thanks again to Chris, Kitchen, Bronwyn, Alex, Shannon-- but also to
all the volunteers and participants who make LABC what it is.

-Joz

[David Noble]

First, for the BarCampLA organizers... y'all rock! Thanks for doing what you do.

You're probably way ahead of me, but I'll make my suggestion/request anyway:

Please coordinate schedules with the BarCamp San Diego folks. It looks like they are staking out Jan 16/17, and I would really like to be able to attend both LA and SD events. From what I saw in this spring, I'm not the only person who like to keep a foot (or at least a toe) in both communities. Just my humble plea :-)

Thanks,

- Dave

[Bronwyn Lewis]

Hey Mack (& everyone else),

Thanks for the comments! It's good for us to have this discussion.

I think Sean brings up a good point in the argument for one BCLA a
year, in that there are so many other awesome tech events in LA that
BCLA isn't the only event. BCLA is a totally awesome event, and if
possible, I'm sure there are even folks who would love to have it more
often than twice a year.

But maybe we need to think about the whole thing differently. One
thing I've been reminding myself of a lot lately, in pretty much every
aspect of my life is that "just because we've been doing it this way,
doesn't mean it's the right way."

Maybe BCLA as we know it needs to go back to the original (&
worldwide) once a year model, but something else needs to help fill
any gaps left. Maybe we should add another evening event once a month
to the tech community calendar that's more in the spirit of BarCamp
rather than a party. We've got Mindshare, which is awesome, but maybe
folks want something free and/or more education/discussion oriented
*in addition* to that.

Since going back to school in August, my involvement in BCLA has been
pretty much nil, but based on BCLA7 - even that was a big struggle.
There are some sponsors more than willing to help out, but others have
empty pockets, and when it comes to the size of BCLA, even BCLA7's
venue wasn't big enough in all honesty. Thankfully, we did have a
pretty cool venue for BCLA7 even if it wasn't really big enough and we
even came in under budget on food, but the belts seem to keep getting
tighter as the community grows, and those two things don't reconcile
very well.

I can totally understand wanting to keep it on the twice a year
schedule -- trust me, a lot of people I know would love to do it
because it's kind of like having this awesome geeky summer camp
weekend twice a year -- but it's just becoming less sustainable, I
think.

And yes, we should certainly get the rest of the community more
involved. But we should also figure out some alternative events to
help fill any gaps in the tech community.

And Dave - I completely agree on ensuring no conflicts with San Diego.
I love the San Diego crew, and ultimately, I'd love to see the BC
community as the "SoCal BC" community, and less LA and SD. There's
enough overlap already that that's essentially what it is. And if we
can somehow get the two BarCamps on a schedule that would allow for a
SoCal BarCamp each 6 months, I think that could be a great situation
for everyone.

That's my 2 cents.

Thanks,
Bronwyn

On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 7:01 AM, factoid <facto...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

--
-bronwyn

[Amanda Abelove]

I really like the idea of having it be once a year in January as opposed to November... It was going to be a crunch with holiday travel... A BarCamp holiday afterparty sounds like a pretty good time to me!

-Amanda

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
310-237-6370
Skype: amanda.abelove

Scrum Club - A Scrum methodology user group
@scrumclub, #scrumclub
http://scrumclub.org

Corporate Espionage - A tradable card game on entrepreneurship
@corpespionage, #corpespionage
http://masterofespionage.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Marc Vermut]

I also think that Darbro's academic/institutional approach is the right one...for space availability and cost constraints.  UCLA seems a no go (at least through Anderson).  Are there other local institutions that are reasonably located where there might be a good fit?

Oh, and though it's been said repeatedly, thanks to the organizers for taking this on.

marc

[Dave Viner]

I wouldn't say that UCLA is a no-go just yet.  We couldn't make it happen for Nov 14-15, but that doesn't mean it can't happen at other times (especially with more advance notice).  But, I think USC, SMC, and other local colleges might be great venues as well.

Once a year seems reasonable to me.  Twice a year is great, but hard to convince sponsors to give money more than once a year.

Dave Viner

[Amanda Abelove]

Does anyone know anyone at LMU?

-Amanda

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
310-237-6370
Skype: amanda.abelove

Scrum Club - A Scrum methodology user group
@scrumclub, #scrumclub
http://scrumclub.org

Corporate Espionage - A tradable card game on entrepreneurship
@corpespionage, #corpespionage
http://masterofespionage.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[justin kruger]

I know that I don't have the weight of Heather, or any of the core
organizers of barcampLA, but I used to help throw barcampMilwaukee,
infact, I was the one who registered the domain name and kicked it
off. So, I know a thing or two about barcamp.

Do I think that LA needs more than one barcamp a year, Yes. Do I
think that the founders of it, need to throw it, no.

In Milwaukee, I tried to make the push for our community to move to 2
barcamps a year, and I got a huge push back for more reasons than are
being discussed here, however something else happened months after
that intense discussion.

Milwaukee started throwing thematic one day barcamps. Milwaukee threw
the 1st drupalCamp, the 1st queerCamp, and added photoCamp, and
jobCamp to the events of the year. So instead of focusing on two
large general purpose camps, individuals with a passion were able to
lead the charge on other camps.

When I lead barcampMilwaukee, I never tried to take credit for stuff I
did, instead, I would try to find someone else to get involved. In
milwaukee we turned away fiscal sponsors, and only allowed companies
that put in time and effort to contribute $200. At the time we had
sponsors wanting to give us $5000 towards the event, and it would have
been easy to take the money, however I made sure the community
understood that by forcing people to get involved over taking the
money that it would grow the participation pool. Barcamps in
milwaukee happen for 2 reasons, one no-one in specific throws them,
and two, milwaukee has the only physical wiki space in the world,
Bucketworks.org.

I would suggest that if people want to have more camps, i think that's
great, but more people need to put their foot in, and I also think we
need to take advantage of this down economy and create our own
physical wiki space, so that camps have a home which makes the
organizing of them so much easier.

On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 11:29 AM, Dave Viner <dave...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Geoff Brown]

I'm an LMU alum and would be happy to help coordinate any discussions.
@TheFrosty had some success there recently with WordCamp, but you're going to have to host the alcohol portions of the day off campus (like, at the Custom Hotel for example).

As with any campus event, it helps to have students, faculty or administrators who are spearheading the request into facilities.

Geoff Brown
geoff...@gmail.com
mobile:  (310) 243-6332
@geoffabrown

[Bronwyn Lewis]

Thanks for weighing in, Justin. It's great to hear that from someone
with that kind of experience and involvement in barcamps and tech
communities outside of LA. I totally agree it would be great to see
more one day barcamp-like camps.

-Bronwyn

--
-bronwyn

[Curtis Cunningham]

Well said heather!

---
Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 4, 2009, at 8:57 AM, heather vescent <heather...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Curtis Cunningham]

Well said Heather!

How about training up some barcamp organizers so there's a bigger pool
of folks to help?

I'll volunteer to be an intern :)

Curtis

---
Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 4, 2009, at 8:57 AM, heather vescent <heather...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>

[Curtis Cunningham]

Second this idea. Could be a nice compromise, and it would be neat to
have more in depth or thematic one day events.

Curtis

---
Sent from my iPhone

[Curtis Cunningham]

Pesky iPhone .. Sending things before I'm done.

Also meant to say I really enjoy these events and get excited to see
them come round. Many thanks to all the organizers who've done a
brilliant job to date. THANK YOU!

Curtis

---
Sent from my iPhone

>>>> sure we

>>>> due to

>>>> here for

[justin kruger]

Heather, is there somewhere we can meet this weekend to discuss
barcamp like events in the LA area?

If I were to pick a spot, I like Sabor Y Cultura ( 5625 Hollywood
Blvd, Los Angeles, CA‎ ), where there is plenty of room for 10 of us
to gather and discuss stuff.

Being a midwest person I would also make the meetup time 9am saturday
morning, Yes, it will hurt, but it's also early enough not to have a
conflict with other things on people schedules.

[heather vescent]

I'd suggest Canters. Realistically, who would come out for this
conversation at say 10am Saturday? Would anyone do this?

(Feel free to throw out other location/times, but I do think it's key
that the current barcamp organizers can be present.)

I would say this goes without saying, but I'm gonna type it, cause
email is often misunderstood/interpreted very differently from the
intention is it typed from: that from my perspective the point of the
conversation is not to blame or make low blows to people personally. I
like to assume we're all doing things the best we can. (Because I
think, nobody is trying explicitly to be an asshole, even though you
might think/interpret they are.) As well, it's not about doing things
the way they have always been done, or the way they were meant to be
done, or the way other people/communities do it. Its not doing it a
certain way that certain people want it done either.

It's about making it the way _we_ (everyone in the community) wants it
done and needs it done to thrive. And to co-create that, there needs
to be space for dialog and supposedly disparate voices.

-Heather

ps. Loving this dialog and everyone chiming in with their perspectives. Thanks.

[Burt]

On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 5:39 PM, heather vescent <heather...@gmail.com> wrote:

It's about making it the way _we_ (everyone in the community) wants it
done and needs it done to thrive. And to co-create that, there needs
to be space for dialog and supposedly disparate voices.

ps. Loving this dialog and everyone chiming in with their perspectives. Thanks.

Amen to that!

While just a lurker, I'm honored to be witness to people acting out of principle for the greater good. Thanks to everyone involved for doing what's necessary to make BarCamp happen!

- Burt
 
p.s. Can I get an "amen"? Can I get a "hallelujah"?

[Amanda Abelove]

OMG I so want a pastrami sandwich all of a sudden.

-Amanda

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
310-237-6370
Skype: amanda.abelove

Scrum Club - A Scrum methodology user group
@scrumclub, #scrumclub
http://scrumclub.org

Corporate Espionage - A tradable card game on entrepreneurship
@corpespionage, #corpespionage
http://masterofespionage.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Deborah Shadovitz]

On Nov 4, 2009, at 10:55 AM, Amanda Abelove wrote:

> I really like the idea of having it be once a year in January as
> opposed to November... It was going to be a crunch with holiday
> travel... A BarCamp holiday afterparty sounds like a pretty good
> time to me!
>
> -Amanda

Jan is CES.

[justin kruger]

I just found out that someone is working to create a hackerspace in LA

http://twitter.com/crashspaceLA

this would be great for the barcampLA crowd.

> --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
> BarCampLA Wiki: http://barcamp.org/BarCampLosAngeles
> BarCampLA Blog: http://www.barcampla.org/
> BarCampLA Group: http://groups.google.com/group/BarcampLA?hl=en
> -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

[Sean Bonner]

Yep! Thanks so much for mentioning it! Our site is up now too with our
blog and news as we have it..

http://crashspace.org/

-s

> --

> BarCampLA Wiki: http://barcamp.org/BarCampLosAngeles
> BarCampLA Blog: http://www.barcampla.org/
> BarCampLA Group: http://groups.google.com/group/BarcampLA?hl=en

--
Sean Bonner
http://www.seanbonner.com - homebase
http://www.metblogs.com - get local
Unless agreed upon, assume everything in this e-mail might be blogged.

Sent from Culver City, CA, United States