Spring Madison BarCamp?

[Philip Crawford]

Anyone interested in organizing a spring Madison BarCamp?

BarCampMadison used to be in the spring, benefiting from...
1. The weather is usually pretty crappy outside. :)
2. Milwaukee BarCamp is in the fall.

Usually takes about 2.5 months to adequately plan for one of these, so
if we start soon, we could have one in April.

Who's in?

[Bradley Grzesiak]

I'm in.

:brad

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[Kindra Goehler]

I'm willing to help.

Kindra Goehler
Love & Adventure

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[Andrew Shell]

I can help, especially with the web stuff.

Cheers,
Andrew

[Ashe Dryden]

Sounds great :}

Ashe 

[Lucas Dailey]

Is Forward Tech Festival happening this year? I kinda liked tying it in that, having a conference week.

But I'm down with whatever. Me and my colored tape are at barcamps disposal. 

Lucas Dailey

work: OurBallotBox.com

blog: HappyEmergency.tumblr.com

[Bradley Grzesiak]

As awesome as FTF was, adding barcamp at the end was just... exhausting.

I didn't give it as much attention during prep as I would have liked, since I was focused more on Madison Ruby... so I like moving it to the Spring.

:brad

[Preston Austin]

Hi all,

As I mentioned to Philip when he brought this up, I think it's a mistake to decluster things based on an "everyone going to everything" model being too hard. The fall conference cluster isn't incidental or without value, it creates network effect that Madison benefits from, causes good overlap that otherwise doesn't happen, and offers a better way for tie-betweens with the University and larger Colleges here in Madison. As dense high value time it automatically creates opportunity and reward for new leadership in the community, by making each event investment more valuable to the investor.

A move away from that promising platform long before it is "to big" is in my opinion a decrease in value, it makes life easier for the usual suspects who already do the most (arguably too much) work, and puts barcamp where folks who would skip it for the weather or a competing priority in FTF will go. Why is that a smart goal?

I saw FTF as an opportunity to accelerate a natural clustering; originally, for those who don't know, it was simply a name, an idea that it would create value to connect unrelated events that happened to fall near each other. That has proved true, in spades. We are all, with that, building something ownable by our community that is a significant attractor for all sorts of segments in Madison and the region - this embraces but goes beyond the hacker/maker crowd to include the artsy and the biz and also folks with demand, money, and facilities for work. Isolated barcamp won't help much with that. So while I won't oppose a different barcamp date beyond this note, I probably won't invest significantly in it if it substitutes for a fall event per the trend of this conversation.

Thanks,

Preston

[Bradley Grzesiak]

cripes Preston. you and your logic. :P

[Lucas Dailey]

when I said "I like it with FTF", I meant what he said.

On Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 9:58 AM, Preston Austin <preston....@gmail.com> wrote:

[Scott Fradkin]

I'm torn as to the proposal to move MadCamp.  For myself, I would prefer the spring date as the one later in the year falls smack dab in the middle of canning season and I'm unable to help out.  I'm more likely to have extra time at this point in the year both to help organize and to attend.

However, I see the argument for keeping MadCamp as part of FTF.

Unsure.

Scott

---

[Andrew Shell]

We could leave Barcamp for the fall and do another CityCamp in the spring.  Last year it was in May.

On Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 10:11 AM, Greg Tarnoff <greg.t...@gmail.com> wrote:

Based on the feedback, I guess the question is what is the goal of holding a tech event like MadCamp in the spring?

If it is a matter of gathering the community to work together and learn from each other, there are other options that can learn from MadCamp, be simpler to run and have established name recognition (as opposed to starting something new).

I ran MadHackerHaus at Sector 67 2x. The first one had a huge draw (at least I think for a first event with only Twitter & FB as advertising) of over 60 people. The second, not so much. We could run another event, make it more barcamp like (it seems people wanted something more organized), and yet MadCamp can still have its tie to FTF.

I am in the middle of buying a house and have limited time to lead this, but will be happy to give access to the Twitter handle, help build a site and let people use the domain & name if someone else can take lead.

Greg

[Greg Tarnoff]

Based on the feedback, I guess the question is what is the goal of holding a tech event like MadCamp in the spring?

If it is a matter of gathering the community to work together and learn from each other, there are other options that can learn from MadCamp, be simpler to run and have established name recognition (as opposed to starting something new).

I ran MadHackerHaus at Sector 67 2x. The first one had a huge draw (at least I think for a first event with only Twitter & FB as advertising) of over 60 people. The second, not so much. We could run another event, make it more barcamp like (it seems people wanted something more organized), and yet MadCamp can still have its tie to FTF.

I am in the middle of buying a house and have limited time to lead this, but will be happy to give access to the Twitter handle, help build a site and let people use the domain & name if someone else can take lead.

Greg

On Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 9:58 AM, Preston Austin <preston....@gmail.com> wrote:

[philip crawford]

I don't believe MadCamp nor FTF benefitted at all from the combination.  

There was considerable event fatigue for BarCamp which was likely a combination of having it in the summer and having it so close to MadisonRuby and FTC.  

Having MadCamp in the spring has the following benefits:

* Weather.  Good weather keeps people from wanting to be inside all day.  April weather is usually much worse than August weather.  The week of FTF was one of the best weather weeks of the year and it kept me from fully attending the events.  Maybe I'm different.

* Students.  I still think we could do a better job at getting high school and college students mingling with tech professionals.  Having MadCamp in the summer makes this much harder than having it in the spring.

* Sponsorship fatigue.  It's possible that having all these events temporally close may be affecting sponsorship.

* Event Fatigue.  Noted above.  Also, there is very little going on in the spring, from a local tech events perspective.  Spacing out Madison BarCamp from MKE BarCamp would help cross-pollinate b/w the two communities.  

When I initially suggested having MadCamp and FTF, I had not thought through these effects.  The reality of the last MadCamp made me reconsider the goodness of that decision.

WIth all that said, I'm down with whatever the community wants.  I'll advocate strongly for a spring event, and probably will be much less involved if it ends up being an August event - I just love summer outdoors too much.  ;)

- dude

Seedly - Plant a Possibility

http://blog.seedly.me

My profile on IMBY
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[philip crawford]

One question.  If MadisonRuby is August 23-25, when is FTC?  Because a week after August 25th is September 1st, and that is Labor day weekend.  

Anyone know when FTC is being held?

[Eric Sorenson]

Hey Phil, I'll help any way I can!

Eric

[Adam Bradley]

I'd be willing to help any way I can.

[Abraham Williams]

I've been looking for an excuse to visit Madison so I may even drop in :)

Abraham
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[Brad Orego]

Hi all - brand new to the Google Group/generally new to Madison.

Do we have an answer to this yet? It's been ~a month since the last
post.

I'd love to help out/get involved in planning this - I've put together
a ton of fairly sizeable/successful events back in college, so I'd
like to believe I have some experience in event planning and whatnot.

Let me know. Thanks!

- Brad

On Feb 14, 12:51 pm, Abraham Williams <4bra...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've been looking for an excuse to visit Madison so I may even drop in :)
>
> Abraham
> --

> Abraham Williams | InboundScore <http://www.inboundscore.com/> | abrah.am |
> abraham <https://plus.google.com/114233674199568482864>+
> @abraham <https://twitter.com/intent/follow?screen_name=abraham> |

[philip crawford]

Hey Brad,

I ended up deciding to create a Food related barcamp for this spring.

http://madisonfoodcamp.org

If anyone is interested in helping out, that would be awesome.  Just a few people are involved organizing, but looks like we'll have over 100 people at the event with lots of work yet to do.

If we do have a spring barcamp, I'd be able to help some, but not much.

If we have it during FTF, we would end up having it on August 18th, most likely.  The reason is that MadisonRuby is the following weekend.  And the weekend after that is labor day.  So, roughly, the schedule for FTF would be:

Aug. 17th:  Forward Tech Conference (at the union)

Aug 18th:  BarCamp (location tbd)

Aug 24/25th:  MadisonRuby (Overture)

BarCamp certainly doesn't need to be during FTF.

- Phil

[Marc Brakken]

Hey Brad et al.

Andrew also mentioned (and he and I discussed slightly until I completely dropped the ball... sorry Andrew!) doing a version of a citycamp around the first weekend of June (in my mind, the 1st-2nd). This is something that I'd very much like to pursue and am trying to deal with my current overworked status so I have time to work on it. I have a particular idea in mind of what I'd like to see (something between a barcamp and a hackathon with a focus on community betterment projects), but would love to start a conversation and organizing towards something. Perhaps that should break off to a different thread.

Marc

Marc Brakken

Time For the World: TimeFTW.org
PhD Candidate, Geography

University of Wisconsin - Madison

[Greg Tracy]

I too would like to see a CityCamp again. It sounds like there may be
something brewing with the City of Madison and Startup Accelerator
along these lines, but I haven't heard many details.

Greg

[Bradley Grzesiak]

+1 to CityCamp

Bradley Grzesiak
co-founder, bendyworks llc
http://bendyworks.com/

[David Douthitt]

I don't see much in Foodcamp about "food" (it's more like GardenCamp): will there be any focus on things like:

* Best way to sautee mushrooms...

* How to make a soufle

* How to prepare escargots

and other _cooking_ related info...

(I know someone who would be interested in cooking topics...)

On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 9:37 AM, philip crawford <phili...@gmail.com> wrote:

[philip crawford]

You bet.  Some other sessions will be:

How to make Jam

Making sauerkraut

Homemade limoncello

Why probiotics are good for you

Cake couture (cake bites and such)

Pressure canning

Beer making

Using fresh herbs for summer cooking

Mexican cooking demo (probably)

Knife skills (maybe)

Sessions are still being signed up for, so the list might grow.

- Philip