Minutes of 1st barcamp meeting in 2010 (03/02/2010)

[Rainer Spittel]

Minutes of the BarCamp Meeting (03/02/2010 5:30pm @ TRAX)
Attendees: Courtney, Kelly, Daniel, Colin, Rainer

Questions:
Shall we have a barcamp this year?
=> Outcome: yes.

What should the next Barcamp be about?
- Initiated a number of discussions, no conclusion but a number of
ideas.

Barcamp Topic
- It should not be the exactly same topic as last time.
- Possible Topics,Thoughts and Ideas:
- Open Data (again, but we need to find a different focus)
- FLOSS in public schools
- Open Government (transparency; open processes)

Barcamp Structure
- Idea: Have a few short keynotes to talk about the barcamp’s topic. 
- Keynote should initiate discussions upfront of the barcamp.
- Keynote talks are organised (kind of a mini-conference), not in a
barcamp style.
- Invite selected keynote speakers for the specific topic (i.e. M.O.
for FLOSS in Education/public schools?)
- Possible idea for keynotes: 
- ‘What is Open Government?’
- ‘What is FLOSS?’
- ‘What is transparency?’ (??) - This idea came up once but has not
been really discussed as a possible topic for the barcamp.
- M.O. talk about FLOSS in public schools
- The barcamp itself starts with a session: ‘What is barcamp’?

Schedule
- Friday afternoon/evening: Keynotes in a informal environment
- Saturday: Barcamp

Action Points:
- Daniel: send out potential topics to N.T. and J.R. to gather their
thoughts and ideas.

[witbrock]

Are there any thoughts about when this might be. I'd like to see if I
can schedule a trip back home to coincide with it, if possible.

M

[Mike P]

I think it is can no longer use the term "barcamp", with organisers, structure and keynotes

• It is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment.
• It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from participants who are the main actors of the event.
  

http://www.barcamp.org/TheRulesOfBarCamp

NZ Open Govt barcamp is the theme
A date, a place and participants are the only other things required

~mike p

[Tabitha]

Any ideas on when? and where?
Thanks

[Mark Harris]

On 6/02/10 1:47 PM, Mike P wrote:
> I think it is can no longer use the term "barcamp", with organisers,

This stuff doesn't happen with out "organisers" ;-)

> structure and keynotes

But this is fair enough, and is the point I made to Mike R on the Google
barcamp thread. However:

> * *It is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to
> share and learn in an open environment.*
> * *It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction

> from participants who are the main actors of the event.

I agree, but getting a few people revved up to present is not a bad
thing in itself. You forgot the unwritten rule of BarCamp: All rules are
made to be stretched in order to achieve something. ;-)

> *NZ Open Govt barcamp *is the theme

> A date, a place and participants are the only other things required
>

Having a simple rerun of last year would be pointless. That would be
having an event for the sake of having an event. We already pushed the
boundaries by attaching the hackfest.

I think we can guide some presenters into preparing "keynote-type"
events for the Friday that are designed to rev up thought for the
BarCamp proper on Saturday without actually breaching the spirit of
BarCamp.

One thing to remember about the original BarCamp concept is the
difference in population size between Messina's Silicon Valley and
Wellicon City - you can have multiple events with similar attendees and
not have the same presenters when you have a large pool to draw from. We
don't have that large a pool (though I suspect it is larger than I
imagine), so setting some targets for people to think about won't hurt
to focus ideas.

The essence of the thing is to share and learn - to deny ourselves
opportunities to do that, because of overly officious interpretations of
rules would be very straitjacketing, in my view.

That said, too much structure might spoil the 2-way objective and run
the risk of producing a passive, audience rather than a participative
community. It's a fine line.

~mark

[Mark Harris]

On 5/02/10 3:22 PM, Rainer Spittel wrote:
> Minutes of the BarCamp Meeting (03/02/2010 5:30pm @ TRAX)
> Attendees: Courtney, Kelly, Daniel, Colin, Rainer
>

Rainer et al, my apologies for not showing up on Wednesday. I changed my
meds last week and my brain turned to mush :-(

While I'm still happy to be involved, and would like to present, my
health is unlikely to let me be as involved as I was last year, which is
a bummer, but I'll do as much as I can.

Thanks for the minutes (excellent) I have some comments (surprise,
surprise!):

> Questions:
> Shall we have a barcamp this year?
> => Outcome: yes.

Yayyy!

> What should the next Barcamp be about?
> - Initiated a number of discussions, no conclusion but a number of
> ideas.
>
> Barcamp Topic
> - It should not be the exactly same topic as last time.

Agree completely. That would be pointless (see my comments to Mike P)

> - Possible Topics,Thoughts and Ideas:
> - Open Data (again, but we need to find a different focus)
> - FLOSS in public schools
> - Open Government (transparency; open processes)

Having read Nat's article, I think we could focus on the benefits of
opening up data, rather than the technologist approach of "what data
could we open up". Perhaps the keynote session could look there.

While FLOSS in schools is a great topic, I think that's a BarCamp in
istelf, and not hugely relevant to open government. The economic
benefits of a FLOSS oriented policy to public life (i.e. FLOSS in the
public sector) is a more appropriate approach, I think.

> Barcamp Structure
> - Idea: Have a few short keynotes to talk about the barcamp’s topic.
> - Keynote should initiate discussions upfront of the barcamp.
> - Keynote talks are organised (kind of a mini-conference), not in a
> barcamp style.

I like this idea - the purpose of a barcamp is discussion and
participation, but I see no harm in tossing some stuff out there, which
is where a FLOSS discussion might be best. I'd suggest 3-4
presentations, and a panel discussion as a starting point.

> - Invite selected keynote speakers for the specific topic (i.e. M.O.
> for FLOSS in Education/public schools?)
> - Possible idea for keynotes:
> - ‘What is Open Government?’

This is a good idea. I had a discussion back in the 90's about the
"knowledge society" goal that the government of the day was promoting,
with a CEO I won't name (but is no longer one). I said to him, "Do we
have a definition for "knowledge society"?" He said "no". I said "then
how will we know if we've achieved one?"

> - ‘What is FLOSS?’

Sit down, Daniel and Colin. Not everything is about FLOSS ;-) Open
standards are actually more important. See comments above.

> - ‘What is transparency?’ (??) - This idea came up once but has not
> been really discussed as a possible topic for the barcamp.

I think this is a key part of what open government is about. The
transparency wave is still travelling the governments of the world and
we're starting to see more than lipservice in the UK and other places.
It's time to talk about what that means, to dispell the fears of public
servants that they will be continuously under the spotlight, and to try
to refine the expectations of some of the public that they should have
access to every detail of the bureaucrat's bathroom schedule. I'd love
to do a shot on "why bureaucrat is not a dirty word!" ;-)

> - M.O. talk about FLOSS in public schools

That would be a good keynote, but I wouldn't want it as a theme (see above)

For future minutes, can we name names rather than guess at who might be
involved? I worked out that MO is Mark Osborne and that NT is the lesser
spotted Torkington, but "JR" defeats me. (John Rankin?)

Cheers

~mark

[David Earle]

I agree with Mike P

Some organisation is fine - some inspiration is fine - but keep it minimal.

The idea of a webstock style evening on the Friday night could work really
well

But then leave the bar camp really free form - even last year's event was too
presentation oriented for me and organisers were not quite willing to let go
and see what happened. E.g. pushing someone to fill a slot rather than
leaving it empty and seeing what people did.

Different venue please - sans auditorium - something like a trades exhibition
hall perhaps

Same topic is not a waste of time - we only scratched surface - and govt and
open govt has moved on at least one unit on the log scale (we may even be
approaching 0)

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[K Buehler]

In regards to structure, we were talking about 3 speakers with about 1/2 hour each followed by a further hour and a half of beer and discussion as a lead-in the night before. On the morning of the barcamp, starting with a short talk on what is a barcamp, then off we go.

-Kelly