BarCamp Kashmir experience and how we can improve it

[Ehsan Quddusi]

Hi All,

I have started this discussion to share your experiences about BarCamp
Kashmir 3 and how we can improve it in future. What areas we are
lagging behind and how we can promote this event among our community,
how we can make people aware about the concept and purpose of this
event.

Do share your suggestions.

Regards
Ehsan

[Ehsan Quddusi]

Can we discuss these things here :)

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Barcamp Kashmir - Technology event in Kashmir
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Regards
Ehsan Quddusi
www.kashit.org | +91 9419422263
GTalk / Skype - ehsan.quddusi,  Twitter - ehsanquddusi

[Owais Lone]

I think talks need to be more developer oriented. More workshops may be.

Owais Lone
he...@owaislone.org
http://www.owaislone.org

[Umar Zaffer]

Agreed.

My idea of Barcamp success is to make it more FUN & SIMPLE

Fun, so as to attract more and more to come, sit and take part.
Simple, in terms of content(talks & discussions), so that most of the audience (if not all) actually learn and be motivated.

Further explanation is welcome :)

Umar Zaffer | +919858714477 | Skype : umar.zafar
Tech Lead | iKraft Software Pvt Ltd, Zam Zam Complex, Sgr | Ph : +911942441020

[Ehsan Quddusi]

Right, i agree with Umar. Personally i feel, we need to focus on sharing useful stuff in a systematic manner, rather than divulging in different topics. Apart from this, we need to keep a fixed time for general community related discussions, but dey also need to be moderated. 

For rest of the time, we should have pre-planned tech oriented (may be hands on programming etc) sessions.

I do agree that this does not fit under BarCamp philosophy, but we have to put in a bit of localization.

What you say?

[Mir Nazim]

While we must plan as much as possible. We have to be ready to change
that. because I have not seen a single camp that was executed as
planned.

But most important is to give idea of what to expect at the camp
pretty early, e.g talks There was only 1 talk registered until the
very last time. all other talks came ahead only in the last hour. We
have to change that.

We have to start early, next time

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Regards
Mir Nazim
Phone: +91 9469071855
Skype/GTalk: mirnazim

[Jahangir Raina]

Here is my feedback ...

Plan content properly. There are not millions of IT companies in Kashmir.
You are
therefore very unlikely to get 100 speaker proposals. Therefore one of the
voluneteers
should at least ping various IT companies locally to share what innovative
stuff they are doing.

And presentations should not look like lectures. They should be about
sharing knowledge on
'how companies in kashmir are handling variuous different problems in an
innovative way'
that should be the central theme of content at barcamp.

i know barcamps do not urge/force people to speak. but in absence of an
effort to improve content this event
will slowly die out in kmr simply because content may not be satisfactory
and attendees will not return.

irshad has the list of attendees. find out how many people re-attended after
last bar camp.
take out volunteer companies and sponsoring companies. look at the remaining
number and ask yourself
what needs to be done to bring previous attendees back at these events.

the other issue is bringing in students and others at the event. it is good.
but the ratio of
working-IT-professionals to others should be 80:20. does not matter if we
get only 50 attendees.
that should not be an issue.

what i can say is that this event has potential. but the attendee will ask
himself whether he has learned
anything new/interesting/important.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ehsan Quddusi" <ehsan....@gmail.com>
To: "Barcamp Kashmir" <barcamp...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 21, 2010 9:58 AM
Subject: [Barcamp Kashmir:493] BarCamp Kashmir experience and how we can
improve it

> Hi All,
>
> I have started this discussion to share your experiences about BarCamp
> Kashmir 3 and how we can improve it in future. What areas we are
> lagging behind and how we can promote this event among our community,
> how we can make people aware about the concept and purpose of this
> event.
>
> Do share your suggestions.
>
> Regards
> Ehsan
>

[Ehsan Quddusi]

@jahangir - You are right.

But who do you mean, when you say plan event properly? You are the part of this community, infact everybody is equal.

So everybody has to take a lead. I hope, i am right. :)

Regarding the theme of presentations / talks, i feel, people here will hardly like to hear about the innovative stuff. If we say technology event, they want technology to be discussed directly. 

How many companies turned around, apart from organising / sponsoring ones?? Hardly any!! Reason!! They see it a wastage of time...even though i talked to each of them personally.

So we need to cater to professionals rather than companies, so that dey are attracted and atleast they can attend irrespective of whether their companies are participating or not. 

This is, atleast, what happens outside.

[Qazi Mamoon]

I support Ehsan Bhai.. Its supposed to be an unconference.. If you think something should be done, then dont wait for others and do it yourself..

Mamoon

[Mir Nazim]

I guess you understood JR in wrong way. JR did not say "You should
plan" he just said plan.

1. We need better planning. +1 from me. We need to talk to companies.
We live in Kashmir and employees will only come if companies tell them
to. Plus while doing advocacy, we should be pushing people to register
talks. Very early on.

2. Presentation look like lectures. +1 from me. I remember only JR,
me and a few others asking questions and fuelling discussion. This
needs to change. Even if we have to introduce stubs(people a magician
puts inside the crowd & they work on magicians que) to ask questions
and start discussions.

Irshad has the list and should check for re-attendees. +1 from me.

80:20 ration. +1 from me. We have to understand Barcamp is not a
Student event. its a professional event. If there is a student who is
also a profession push him to come and talk. Pure students are welcome
but they are not the focus. No offence to students. I love them all.
They are welcome at barcamps but please do not expect any student
centric content planning.

--
Regards

[Jahangir Raina]

create a content un-committee for the event. or is that also a backward concept?

[Mir Nazim]

We should create a content "un-committee"; doesn't make sense to me.
We need to encourage people for to give/hold sessions and talks.

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Regards