July 30th: Speakers Corner

[Ross Cooney]

Hi,

We want to encourage people to setup and run other regular usergroups
and one-off workshops. Paul Callaghan (a member of our Advisory Board)
has setup a new mailing list to discuss this here:
https://groups.google.com/group/north-east-workshops?hl=en

We were particularly impressed at the way Richard Powell built his
jQuery workshop from scratch:
http://www.byrichardpowell.co.uk/post/19021979265/giving-back-the-workshop-way#ux

We were also encouraged by Drew Neil from VimCasts.org who seems to
have setup a business around his workshops:
http://vimcasts.org/blog/2012/06/upcoming-workshops-edinburgh-glasgow-and-newcastle/

Not everybody will be able to dedicate the time that Richard and Drew
needed build their workshops, however we are dedicating the next two
monthly events to encourage others.

This month we are running an event called “Speakers Corner”. On the
night people can have the opportunity to stand behind the podium for
5-10 minutes to:

- give a quick presentation on something intereting (perhaps in a bar
camp style)
- Discuss a new usergroup that you would like to run or attend (you
don’t need to run this yourself, you could encourage others to run it,
or to help you)
- Canvas opinion on workshop topics and gauge opinion

Perhaps you are interested in a topic and want to discuss it. Running
a presentation is not a commitment to take it further. The response
you get might encourage somebody to either work with you or run it
themselves. The event is aimed to be informative and nothing more.

Our August event will be set aside for larger presentations. We will
book several rooms and run several 20-30 minute workshops depending on
the reaction to the speakers at the July event.

This month we are also going to continue with the concept of the
‘Donation Ticket’. This was hugely popular last month. The concept of
a Donation Ticket allows us to continue running free events for the
community and we want to thank you for considering it…feel free to
clear any small balances in your PayPal account into this ;)

In the early days of SuperMondays we tried to encourage open-source
based topics or presentations. As our hair has greyed we have
mellowed. Feel free to talk about any technology, software, hardware,
open-source, proprietary or design (or anything in between).

You can sign up here:
http://www.supermondays.org

Thanks,

Ross Cooney