DemoCampMontreal3 in June...?
Evan Prodromou
As I write this, we're now officially on June 5th. The schedule at the
SAT shows ample dates open at the end of the month.
To get up a sufficient momentum for a good DemoCamp, it would probably
be a good idea to nail down a date by the end of this week or the
beginning of next.
In the absence of any other preferences, I'd love to see some evening
between the 26th and the 29th be picked, since that's when Tara Hunt and
Chris Messina -- the unofficial ambassadorial couple for the BarCamp
movement -- will be visiting Montreal.
So, uh... next steps?
-Evan
--
Evan Prodromou <ev...@prodromou.name>
Simon Law
Yeah, I'd prefer the 26th, as I will be leaving for Linux Symposium
shortly after St-Jean Baptiste day.
I understand that Fred is looking into space at the SAT. But I'm not
adverse to looking at other venues, or contact them ourselves, if he's
too busy with his new venture.
Fred? Everyone else?
Cheers,
--
Simon Law http://www.law.yi.org/~sfllaw/
Evan Prodromou
> Yeah, I'd prefer the 26th, as I will be leaving for Linux Symposium
> shortly after St-Jean Baptiste day.
>
> I understand that Fred is looking into space at the SAT. But I'm not
> adverse to looking at other venues, or contact them ourselves, if he's
> too busy with his new venture.
I'd rather not move from the SAT; it's a great venue.
-Evan
Avery Pennarun
The SAT is certainly fine, but I think we should try to find a way to
arrange more conversational and less presentation-style unconference.
I've visited BarCampWaterloo and BarCampToronto and they've done
excellently in that respect.
The magic is really in three things:
1) Number of people in a talk: too many makes discussion annoying/difficult.
2) Length of a talk: too few people prevents questions and discussion.
3) Seating arrangement that doesn't put the speaker on a pedestal
(figuratively speaking; literal pedestals might be ok).
To achieve #1, especially given that this is trying to be a
"BarCampCanada" with even more attendees than usual, we definitely
would have to split into multiple rooms or areas. (Waterloo doesn't
do this because it's very small; Toronto does, to excellent effect.)
Montreal had trouble with #2 at the last conference because it became
too popular so we had to limit people to 15 minutes. Not
coincidentally, the only presentation that spawned a real discussion
was the one we gave extra time to. Splitting into more simultaneous
streams would solve this as well as #1.
To achieve #3, well, I do know that stadium-style seating isn't the
most conducive.
I'm sure the SAT can accommodate just about anything and is definitely
a much *cooler* venue than the other two camps had when I visited.
It's a great fit for our unique Montreal culture. We just have to
know what we're trying to achieve so we can ask for it, is all.
Have fun,
Avery
Avery Pennarun
> The SAT is certainly fine, but I think we should try to find a way to
> arrange more conversational and less presentation-style unconference.
My apologies, I got a little mixed up: I was talking more about
BarCampCanada here than DemoCampMontreal, because I misread the
subject line and reread it as soon as I sent the message.
DemoCampMontreal may be best off continuing with exactly the current
layout, as the most important thing in a demo is not the discussion,
but the making sure people don't drag on forever :)
Have fun,
Avery
Evan Prodromou
> > I'd rather not move from the SAT; it's a great venue.
>
> The SAT is certainly fine, but I think we should try to find a way to
> arrange more conversational and less presentation-style unconference.
I've read your followup and know that you confused DCM3 with BCC1, so
I'm going to respond as if we're talking about BarCampCanada1.
> To achieve #1, especially given that this is trying to be a
> "BarCampCanada" with even more attendees than usual, we definitely
> would have to split into multiple rooms or areas.
The main organizational method for RoCoCoCamp and RecentChangesCamp in
Montreal is a technique called "Open Space". It is, in a word, awesome.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Space_Technology
Open Space starts with a scheduling session first thing in the morning.
Then, there are three or four sessions broken into groups of 2-25
people, with each session concentrating on peer-to-peer talks and
productive outcomes (doing real work).
It may be fun to do something like this for BarCampCanada: have a
two-day conference, with the first day having two presentation tracks
(front and back room at SAT), and the second day doing entirely Open
Space.
I realize this is a ways off, but it might be worth talking about now.
-Evan
Evan Prodromou
> DemoCampMontreal may be best off continuing with exactly the current
> layout, as the most important thing in a demo is not the discussion,
> but the making sure people don't drag on forever :)
I think that it should stay with its last iteration, i.e. the bar should
be open.
-Evan
s...@pooq.com
> I think that it should stay with its last iteration, i.e. the bar should
> be open.
>
Which reminds me. We should be careful about terminology here. The term 'open
bar' which I saw used in the last DemoCamp announcement means 'free booze' to
most anglophones, which isn't what we want to imply. The term 'cash bar' is
usually used to indicate that there is a bar and that we charge for drinks.