Brilliant. Thanks, David. I encourage everyone to add their thoughts -
I'd like to produce a more formal document from the wiki entries that we
can wave at people in meatspace and persuade them or the value of what
we're doing.
It's been an awesome 2 days, and the fun doesn't stop here. We developed
some ideas into projects initiated the processes for some of those and
even got some code written. This was the biggest BarCamp so far in NZ
(and I suspect that 160 is about the maximum size you'd want to got to
for logistics purposes, but I'm willing to watch someone try for more
;-), and the first time a HackFest has been joined to one, but not the
last as each day made the other better. A great combination!
My thanks to the intrepid souls who helped organize the event. In no
particular order - Mike Riversdale, Courtney Johnston, Rebecca Cox, Jo
Eaton, Rainer Spittel, Nicole Tiefensee, Rowan Smith, Natasha Hall, Jane
Harris, Laurence Millar, Colin Jackson, Rumi Shivaz and Daniel Spector,
and huge special thanks to Kelly Buehler for superb project management
skills (technically known as "ball-juggling") and stepping forward to
make sure that not only things happened, but the *right* things happened
at the *right* time. Wednesday evenings are going to be a little empty
without the Trax meetings ;-)
My thanks also to the Sponsors who stepped forward and enabled us to put
on such a fab weekend - National Library, WaveAdept, Julie Starr,
SilverStripe, boost New Media Microsoft, Rumi Shivaz, DIA Government
Technology Services, NZCS, LINZ, Seradigm, 3Months.com, Michael Witbrock
(Cycorp & nz.com), InternetNZ, CatalystIT, Dragonfly, GOVIS and Squizz.net.
Finally, thanks go to all who participated by showing up and talking and
listening and thinking. I've yet to hear a negative comment about either
day (as long as we don't talk about my *outstanding* network skillz this
morning </sarcasm>) - if you've got a problem you want to raise, email
me privately and we'll talk about it, or a suggestion to make, then
email the list. One suggestion (from Vince Friday) is to supply a server
at the Hackfest with the standard dev packages on it which would resolve
a lot of the connectivity and setup issues. Brilliantly simple - wish
I'd thought of it. Next time.
To the future: this is not the end, this is not even the beginning of
the end - this is the beginning of the beginning. The projects will go
on. We've made contact with people around the country who want to make
things happen, but there are many more yet to be included. BarCamp is
not a corporation - it's a way of life. If you want to run one, you
don't need a licence - just energy and a will to make stuff happen.
On a less event-driven path, there is stuff happening and talk occurring
daily and the best place to find out about it is the OpenGovt Ninja list
that was started a few moths ago and was one of the catalysts for the
barcamp - http://groups.opengovt.org.nz/groups/ninja-talk - check it
out, join up and add to the conversations. You don't have to be a coder
to help in moving government into the Open Age - citizens have a special
part to play in defining the needs that have to be fulfilled.
So remember: Transparency is the New Black - let's get out there and
make it real.
Yours sleepily,
Mark Harris
@nzlemming
BarCamp Wrangler.
http://wiki.open.org.nz/Barcamp_and_Hackfest