Re: [WCMTL] Planning meeting for WordCamp 2010? Réunion de planification pour WordCamp 2010?

[Philippe Martin]

oui, suis interessé
-----------------------------------------------------
Philippe Martin
http://twitter.com/PhilippeMartin
http://lafabriquedeblogs.com
http://nayezpaspeur.ca
http://www.google.com/profiles/philippe.paradigma
Iphone: 514-993-3700
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2010/6/7 Shannon Smith (Café Noir Design) <cafenoi...@gmail.com>

Anyone interested in an organizing meeting for WordCamp Montreal 2010?
If yes, please indicate your availability.
Est-ce qu'il y du monde qui s'intéresse à une réunion de planification
pour WordCamp Montréal 2010? Si oui, précisez votre disponibilité.

To discuss / À discuter :

-date
-venue / lieu
-format
-funding / financement
-t-shirt colour / couleur de t-shirt
-other? / autre?

All input welcome! Toute contribution bienvenue!

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[Jeremy Clarke]

On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 5:04 PM, Shannon Smith (Café Noir Design) <cafenoi...@gmail.com> wrote:

Anyone interested in an organizing meeting for WordCamp Montreal 2010?
If yes, please indicate your availability.

I am interested! :)

I am in town this week till friday, then will be gone for a week so ideally we would have a meeting after the 23rd.

Sylvain Carle can let us know if/when we might be able to use the Praized office.  I bet Station C would also set us use their conference room if we ask nicely.

Maybe the 24th? 25th?

Some quick thoughts on your list for consideration:

-date

The "early july"/jazzfest boat has sailed. I'll take the blame for it since I'm the one who continued claiming it was possible on Twitter while doing absolutely no work.

Personally I favor an autumn WordCamp Montreal.
 

-venue / lieu

I was really happy with SAT last year, so unless there is some horrible problem with it that would be a good choice again. If someone has a lead on a free space that is just as good then we can always consider it. Needs:

• space for ~150 people, preferably with possibility of everyone in the same room at some points.
  
• support for projectors, audio equipment.
  

 

-format

I'm a bit tempted to try out a 1-day wordcamp this time. Last year the second day a lot less people came, and it would let us have a much denser schedule and be less desperate for speakers.

2-day has a lot of advantages of course, not the least of which is that the ticket price of 2 days helps subsidize flat costs like tshirts.
 

-funding / financement

Ha ha, fun stuff. I believe Microsoft is still happy to support WordCamps. Sylvain was the genius behind the funding last year so he can hopefully help with that again.
 

-t-shirt colour / couleur de t-shirt

Ahh, the most important part!  

All input welcome! Toute contribution bienvenue!

Thanks for getting the discussion started! :)

--
Jeremy Clarke
Code and Design | globalvoicesonline.org

[Shannon Smith (Café Noir Design)]

> Maybe the 24th? 25th?

Might be tough to get people on an extended long weekend, but I'm
available. Otherwise, June 29-30?

>
> Some quick thoughts on your list for consideration:
>
> -date

> Personally I favor an autumn WordCamp Montreal.

This sounds good to me.

> > -venue / lieu
>
> I was really happy with SAT last year, so unless there is some horrible
> problem with it that would be a good choice again. If someone has a lead on
> a free space that is just as good then we can always consider it. Needs:

I really liked the SAT last time.

> > -format
>
> I'm a bit tempted to try out a 1-day wordcamp this time. Last year the
> second day a lot less people came, and it would let us have a much denser
> schedule and be less desperate for speakers.
>
> 2-day has a lot of advantages of course, not the least of which is that the
> ticket price of 2 days helps subsidize flat costs like tshirts.

My pref is a two-day event. Also, though I loved all the techie
presentations last year, I think it would be nice to have some more
offered for beginners/bloggers. But also keep lots of tech stuff.
Maybe an idea for a 2-track conference? (Other suggestions welcome!)

> > -funding / financement
>
> Ha ha, fun stuff. I believe Microsoft is still happy to support WordCamps.
> Sylvain was the genius behind the funding last year so he can hopefully help
> with that again.

That would be great.

> > -t-shirt colour / couleur de t-shirt

My vote is dark grey (just sayin').

[Kathryn Presner]

> My pref is a two-day event. Also, though I loved all the techie
> presentations last year, I think it would be nice to have some more
> offered for beginners/bloggers. But also keep lots of tech stuff.
> Maybe an idea for a 2-track conference? (Other suggestions welcome!)

I like the dual-track idea. I forget which WordCamp it was, but I saw
one that had two tracks: one for bloggers/beginners and one for
designers/developers. Could be a format to consider, whether it ends
up being a one- or two-day event.

kp

Zoonini Web Services
http://www.zoonini.com | Twitter: @zoonini

[Kathryn Presner]

Ah - it was Chicago. They called them User Track & Developer Track:

http://wordcampchicago.com/progra/

kp

[Jeremy Clarke]

On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 5:55 PM, Kathryn Presner <zoo...@gmail.com> wrote:

I like the dual-track idea. I forget which WordCamp it was, but I saw
one that had two tracks: one for bloggers/beginners and one for
designers/developers. Could be a format to consider, whether it ends
up being a one- or two-day event.

WordCamp montreal didn't have room segregation along user/developer lines but the schedule was organized to try and achieve the same effect. The 2 rooms were organized by big/small and went back and forth between developer topics and general interest topics, ideally with the goal of putting the talk with the bigger audience in the big room and letting small audience have the "cozier" room. Not having set topics for each room also has the effect of mixing people up, something I think is good for the conference overall, as you get some pros in the user sessions (to correct the speaker) and some users in the pro sessions (to ask the questions the pros are too embarassed to ask).

If you look at the schedule you'll have a hard time finding many programming talks that didn't have a non-programming competitor: http://wordcampmontreal.org/schedule/ (well sylvain's talk didn't have competition but that's because we ran out of talks!)

Admittedly there weren't a lot of 'intro to x for noobs' talks but that was mostly because no one came forward to do those presentations. I repeatedly promoted the idea of intro talks when I was requesting speakers but didn't get a lot of offers.  The result was that the 'user' track had a lot of things like case studies of schools/institutions using WP rather than specific workshops on doing things with it.

IMHO the nature of SAT and its space makes it better to assess likelihood of big audience rather than type of talk for presence in the 'big room'. What we need to do is get speakers to sign up for the tutorial type presentations so that they can be worked into the schedule (i did one of each last year: theming for noobs and optimization for pros).

[Jeremy Clarke]

BTW: For those interesting in helping to organize here's a link to the "WordCamp Principles", part guidelines and part rules, that we need to aim for. Most of it is just conceptual but there are a few specific things that we need to account for:

http://central.wordcamp.org/about/

[Brendan Sera-shriar]

I have been talking with Sylvain and Stephane about organizing wordamp this year!!! I'm very excited to get thi going!!!

lmk

-Brendan

Brendan Sera-Shriar

digibomb - Founder/CEO

http://www.digibomb.com

PHUG-Open Source Culture

Founder/CEO

http://www.phug.ca

On 2010-06-07, at 18:18, Jeremy Clarke <j...@simianuprising.com> wrote:

BTW: For those interesting in helping to organize here's a link to the "WordCamp Principles", part guidelines and part rules, that we need to aim for. Most of it is just conceptual but there are a few specific things that we need to account for:

http://central.wordcamp.org/about/

[Claude Malaison]

YES, PLEASE CALL ME AT COORDINATES

--
Claude Malaison
Vice-président Stratégie et contenus
NEXT l'Agence
514-880-4188
emerg...@next-lagence.com
http://twitter.com/Emergent007

2010/6/7 Shannon Smith (Café Noir Design) <cafenoi...@gmail.com>

Anyone interested in an organizing meeting for WordCamp Montreal 2010?
If yes, please indicate your availability.

Est-ce qu'il y du monde qui s'intéresse à une réunion de planification
pour WordCamp Montréal 2010? Si oui, précisez votre disponibilité.

To discuss / À discuter :

-date
-venue / lieu
-format
-funding / financement

-t-shirt colour / couleur de t-shirt

-other? / autre?

All input welcome! Toute contribution bienvenue!

[Shannon Smith (Café Noir Design)]

I don't think any topic or stream needs to be relegated to a specific
room just because a stream exists. Big talks in the big room and small
ones in the small one sounds great. Just like last year.

I just think that in advertising the event and seeking out speakers it
would be useful to divide things into a User Track & Developer Track,
and to have the developer track as technical as last year, and the
user track much more accessible to non-technies who think of WordPress
as a blogging tool, not a technical development platform. I personally
loved the topics last year, and thought they were very interesting. I
love the technical side of things. But I did hear a lot of bloggers
grumbling that they wanted something less technical. On the other
hand, I just went to WordCamp Toronto, and the topics were not
technical enough and way too general. Having two streams aimed at
different audiences just seems to me to be a good way to keep everyone
happy.

Also, having a plugin-fest, like in January(?), sounds like a fun idea
too. And since it doesn't require a speaker (just a leader) or
presentation might be an easy option to include.

On Jun 7, 6:15 pm, Jeremy Clarke <j...@simianuprising.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 5:55 PM, Kathryn Presner <zoon...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I like the dual-track idea. I forget which WordCamp it was, but I saw
> > one that had two tracks: one for bloggers/beginners and one for
> > designers/developers. Could be a format to consider, whether it ends
> > up being a one- or two-day event.
>
> WordCamp montreal didn't have room segregation along user/developer lines
> but the schedule was organized to try and achieve the same effect. The 2
> rooms were organized by big/small and went back and forth between developer
> topics and general interest topics, ideally with the goal of putting the
> talk with the bigger audience in the big room and letting small audience
> have the "cozier" room. Not having set topics for each room also has the
> effect of mixing people up, something I think is good for the conference
> overall, as you get some pros in the user sessions (to correct the speaker)
> and some users in the pro sessions (to ask the questions the pros are too
> embarassed to ask).
>
> If you look at the schedule you'll have a hard time finding many programming

> talks that didn't have a non-programming competitor:http://wordcampmontreal.org/schedule/(well sylvain's talk didn't have

[Andrea R.]

I am highly interested in being a speaker. :) I just got back to the
Maritimes (New Brunswick) from WordCamp Chicago where I gave a talk on
setting up the network feature in 3.0 for multiples sites, and using a
plugin to have each of those sites on a different domain.

Ron & I had been planning to attend WC Montreal whenever you have it.
Heads up: WC New York is looking to be October 16th, instead of in
November.

Andrea

http://ronandandrea.com
http://wpmututorials.com

On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 6:04 PM, Shannon Smith (Café Noir Design)
<cafenoi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Anyone interested in an organizing meeting for WordCamp Montreal 2010?
> If yes, please indicate your availability.
> Est-ce qu'il y du monde qui s'intéresse à une réunion de planification
> pour WordCamp Montréal 2010? Si oui, précisez votre disponibilité.
>
> To discuss / À discuter :
>
> -date
> -venue / lieu
> -format
> -funding / financement
> -t-shirt colour / couleur de t-shirt
> -other? / autre?
>
> All input welcome! Toute contribution bienvenue!
>
> --
> This email is from the WordCamp Montreal Planning Google Group
> To post to this group, send email to wordc...@googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe or change your settings visit the list site: http://groups.google.com/group/wordcampmtl?hl=en

--

http://wpmututorials.com & http://ronandandrea.com

[Jeremy Clarke]

On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 10:49 AM, Shannon Smith (Café Noir Design) <cafenoi...@gmail.com> wrote:

I just think that in advertising the event and seeking out speakers it
would be useful to divide things into a User Track & Developer Track,
and to have the developer track as technical as last year, and the
user track much more accessible to non-technies who think of WordPress
as a blogging tool, not a technical development platform. I personally
loved the topics last year, and thought they were very interesting. I
love the technical side of things. But I did hear a lot of bloggers
grumbling that they wanted something less technical. On the other
hand, I just went to WordCamp Toronto, and the topics were not
technical enough and way too general. Having two streams aimed at
different audiences just seems to me to be a good way to keep everyone
happy.

Agreed. We should try again this year to get the non-advanced technical talks and non-technical publishing talks scheduled, then once we have them scheduled we can promote the dual-nature of the event. The hard part is getting the speakers. Hopefully we'll have a larger pool of interested people now that so many more Montrealers know wtf a wordcamp is and what's involved in presenting.
 

Also, having a plugin-fest, like in January(?), sounds like a fun idea
too. And since it doesn't require a speaker (just a leader) or
presentation might be an easy option to include.

Sure. Another way to generate noob-friendly talks is to make them activities so we don't need to find more speakers. 

[Jeremy Clarke]

On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 11:23 AM, Andrea R. <silly...@gmail.com> wrote:

I am highly interested in being a speaker. :) I just got back to the
Maritimes (New Brunswick) from WordCamp Chicago where I gave a talk on
setting up the network feature in 3.0 for multiples sites, and using a
plugin to have each of those sites on a different domain.

It would be great if you guys could make it down to Montreal! For anyone who doesn't know them Ron and Andrea are epic members of the WP community especially with regard to MU-multi-site stuff.
 

Ron & I had been planning to attend WC Montreal whenever you have it.
Heads up: WC New York is looking to be October 16th, instead of in
November.

Huh. That's relevant isn't it? Maybe aiming for September would be a good idea. I'd be more worried about conflicting with toronto but NYC is the second-closest wordcamp around.

RE: WCTO - I totally missed WordCamp toronto this year because they never wrote back to my application to be a speaker and never posted again on their blog. Not sure what their problem was but I could totally have helped their tech balance.

The lesson is lets not ignore any speaker applications that come in!

jer

[Andrea R.]

Yeah, I thought I'd mention it as it's a pretty big one and Jane gave
me the heads up over the weekend about NYC. So, just thought I'd toss
that out there just in case.

But yay! Count me in.

A.

On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 12:33 PM, Jeremy Clarke <j...@simianuprising.com> wrote:

>>
>> Ron & I had been planning to attend WC Montreal whenever you have it.
>> Heads up: WC New York is looking to be October 16th, instead of in
>> November.
>
> Huh. That's relevant isn't it? Maybe aiming for September would be a good
> idea. I'd be more worried about conflicting with toronto but NYC is the
> second-closest wordcamp around.

[Kathryn Presner]

> Sure. Another way to generate noob-friendly talks is to make them activities
> so we don't need to find more speakers.

Nice idea. Something else to consider: one of the things I *did* like
at WC Toronto was they had some sessions that were called "Success
Stories" - kind of like case studies, presented by some folks doing
interesting things. They were very non-technical, but still engaging,
and of interest to both newbies & more experienced folk.

re: sessions for beginners: this year you'll have at least Shannon & I
who've now presented our WordPress for Newbies talk twice. ;-)

re: dates - also keep in mind that PodCamp Montreal has set its dates
for September 18-19.

re: Andrea - yay! Can't wait to meet you and see you speak!

kp

[Jeremy Clarke]

On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 11:47 AM, Kathryn Presner <zoo...@gmail.com> wrote:

re: dates - also keep in mind that PodCamp Montreal has set its dates
for September 18-19.

Cripes!

jer

[Shannon Smith (Café Noir Design)]

If we are looking at a September/October event on a weekend, things to
keep in mind:

Labour Day Weekend: Sept 4-6
Montreal PodCamp: Sept 18-19
WordCamp Detroit: Oct 9-10
WordCamp NY: Oct 16-17

That leaves:
Sept 11-12 (also WordCamp LA, WordCamp MidAtlantic-Baltimore), Sept
25-26 (also WordCamp Kelowna), Oct 2-3 (also WordCamp Phillipines),
Oct 24-25 (no other WordCamps)

-Shannon

[Sylvain Carle]

And if you want to align it with the "Montreal Web Week" we are planning
in November, that would be either Nov 6-7 or 13-14.

(more comment on other topics as I catch up on the other threads).

[Samuel Lavoie]

+1 for a Web Week, a Camp style week could be awesome.

Tshirt: this year use the offiial WP logo ;) Gray shirt were great.

Venue: Really like the SAT

Format: I'll go with a 1 day event with 2 tracks, technical/designers
-- users/marketers

Samuel Lavoie

[Jeremy Clarke]

On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 1:56 PM, Samuel Lavoie <con...@samuellavoie.com> wrote:

+1 for a Web Week, a Camp style week could be awesome.

I'm -1 for 'web week' or similar. Am I the only person who thinks that kind of thing is more likely to lead to burnout and reduced enthusiasm? We should try to avoid those kinds of conflicts, not try to achieve them by unnecessary clumping of events.

As long as we were alone at our venue at the time it probably wouldn't be considered breaking 'the rules', but the WordCamp about page specifically emphasizes that they need to be standalone events:

Standalone event.

The use of the WordCamp name indicates that it is an entire event dedicated to all things WordPress. WordPress “tracks” within larger events such as BarCamp or other conferences may not use the WordCamp name, as they are not standalone events, and it dilutes the brand of both events. At some point in the nearish future, we hope to enable the listing of these WordPress-focused related events on the main WordCamp site, but for now it is limited to WordCamps only. Local WordCamp organizers may of course post about such related events on their event sites as a service to their local communities if they wish.

http://central.wordcamp.org/about/

 

Tshirt: this year use the offiial WP logo ;) Gray shirt were great.

Do you think we had a non-standard logo on last year's shirts? I'm pretty sure its the real 'official' one. I just checked and my poster and shirt both look like the 'good' one rather than the fauxgo described on this page http://wordpress.org/about/logos/

I like grey too but I think we should probably try to have a different color this year, if only because so many people already have grey ones from last year. Tragically not everyone got a nice grey one because we got so many free white ones from our sponsor iWeb (who offered to print them for free in-house but only on white shirts, so we did half and half, people who arrived early the first day got lucky but lots of people were stuck with white ones. Matt M did not get a gray one because we were all out ;)

[Shannon Smith (Café Noir Design)]

I was one of the ones who (very sadly) missed out on the grey shirt.
How about light grey then?

I am also -1 for web week, which is also the same time as the Sommet
international du jeu de Montréal (Nov 8+9). There is likely to be some
overlap in organizers, meaning that it might be harder to get people
to help, and to get sponsors, and local speakers.

Maybe we should start by checking availability of the SAT. There are
only a few weekends we can do this, and some might already be booked.
Could make choosing a date simpler.


-Shannon


On Jun 8, 2:16 pm, Jeremy Clarke <j...@simianuprising.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 1:56 PM, Samuel Lavoie <cont...@samuellavoie.com>wrote:
>
> > +1 for a Web Week, a Camp style week could be awesome.
>
> I'm -1 for 'web week' or similar. Am I the only person who thinks that kind
> of thing is more likely to lead to burnout and reduced enthusiasm? We should
> try to avoid those kinds of conflicts, not try to achieve them by
> unnecessary clumping of events.
>
> As long as we were alone at our venue at the time it probably wouldn't be
> considered breaking 'the rules', but the WordCamp about page specifically
> emphasizes that they need to be standalone events:
>
> Standalone event.
>
> > The use of the WordCamp name indicates that it is an entire event dedicated
> > to all things WordPress. WordPress “tracks” within larger events such as
> > BarCamp or other conferences may not use the WordCamp name, as they are not
> > standalone events, and it dilutes the brand of both events. At some point in
> > the nearish future, we hope to enable the listing of these WordPress-focused
> > related events on the main WordCamp site, but for now it is limited to
> > WordCamps only. Local WordCamp organizers may of course post about such
> > related events on their event sites as a service to their local communities
> > if they wish.
>
> http://central.wordcamp.org/about/
>
> > Tshirt: this year use the offiial WP logo ;) Gray shirt were great.
>
> Do you think we had a non-standard logo on last year's shirts? I'm pretty
> sure its the real 'official' one. I just checked and my poster and shirt

> both look like the 'good' one rather than the fauxgo described on this pagehttp://wordpress.org/about/logos/

[Sylvain Carle]

> I was one of the ones who (very sadly) missed out on the grey shirt.
> How about light grey then?

Or black, can't go wrong with black :-)

> I am also -1 for web week, which is also the same time as the Sommet

> international du jeu de Montr�al (Nov 8+9). There is likely to be some

> overlap in organizers, meaning that it might be harder to get people
> to help, and to get sponsors, and local speakers.

Well the idea is to do it in the same week as SIJM to get more peeps in
Montreal for more events, but it's just a suggestion (I am organizing
the web week in Montreal and will do a few other *camps around that date).

> Maybe we should start by checking availability of the SAT. There are
> only a few weekends we can do this, and some might already be booked.
> Could make choosing a date simpler.

SAT is closed for heavy-duty renovation this summer and slated to open
back in October/November if everything goes as planned on the
construction project (ahem). I think another location would be safer for
this edition.

As an additional note, I will not be actively organizing this edition of
WordCamp but will gladly give a hand (I had already told Brendan,
Stephane and Jeremy about that but never stated it explicitely on this
list).

--
Sylvain Carle
http://afroginthevalley.com/
http://twitter.com/afrognthevalley

[Jonathan]

Je serais intéressé à être bénévole. Je pense être en mesure d'en
trouver un ou deux autres.

On 7 juin, 17:04, Shannon Smith (Café Noir Design)

[Patrick Do Trong]

Intéressé à être bénévole aussi.

Pat

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[Shannon Smith (Café Noir Design)]

Here is an update on possible dates and other (potentially
conflicting) events.

Possible dates:

Sept 11-12 (also WC LA, WC MidAtlantic/Baltimore)
Sept 25-26 (also WC Kelowna)
Oct 2-3 (also WC Phillipines),

Oct 24-25 (no other WordCamps)

Nov 5-6 (also WC Netherlands)
Nov 13-14 (also WC St-Paul)

Other events in Montreal and nearby:

Sept 4-6: Labour Day Weekend
Sept 18-19: Montreal PodCamp
September (date TBD): TEDx Toronto
Oct 5-7: GTec Ottawa
Oct 9-10: WordCamp Detroit
Oct 11: Canadian Thanksgiving
Oct 16-17: WordCamp NY
Oct 23: GNU Linux Toronto
Nov 11+12: Design Thinkers Toronto
Nov 3: Webcom Toronto
Nov 7+8: Montreal game conference
Nov 7-12: Mtl Web Week



On Jun 8, 11:53 am, Shannon Smith (Café Noir Design)

[Brendan Sera-shriar]

I agree with the entirety of Sammy's email'

Brendan Sera-Shriar
digibomb - Founder/CEO
http://www.digibomb.com

PHUG-Open Source Culture
Founder/CEO
http://www.phug.ca