I am the ghost of groovymother.com. Woooooo!

This is an old page from Rod Begbie's blog.

It only exists in an attempt to prevent linkrot. No new content will be added to this site, and links and images are liable to be broken. Check out begbie.com to find where I'm posting stuff these days.

Filed under 'barcamp'

August 22, 2007

BarCamp - Organisational Notes

(This was originally written as an email to the BarCampBoston mailing list, as notes to help us organise future events. Posted here in the name of getting-the-knowledge-out)

This weekend, I was in Palo Alto to attend BarCampBlock. It was a top trip. I met a shedload of smart people, and learned a staggering amount. My head was dangerously close to asploding.

Now, two days later, I’m finally ready to try and synthesize my experience into some lessons we can use for future BarCampBostons.

1. BarCamp scales.

Remember in March when we were worried about 250 people showing up for BCB2? BarCampBlock had over 900 signups, and around 600 people showed up on the first day. A straw poll showed that for most, it was their first BarCamp.

There were around 20 “spaces” available for sessions, ranging from a 70-capacity auditorium, to meeting rooms with space for seven or eight. The sessions got spread across the schedule fairly evenly, and the wide array of choices meant that, while sometimes there was more than one session you might want to attend, there was always at least one.

The overall feeling I got from the crowd was one of momentum. The organizers turned the key, but once they gave the crowd a little push, the energy carried the event forward. Yes, when they said “Go fill out the board!”, there was a crush. But it was a polite crush that negotiated the schedule well.

2. Have a “Kids’ Area”

There were a handful of kids at the event, and a small office was set-up with legos, pens, chalk, and random other toys to entertain them, with adults taking turns to monitor.

This allowed the parents to attend, gave the kids a chance to socialize, and brought a blast of energy to the other attendees.

3. Sponsorships: Small amounts, but many.

I remember Shimon at the BCB2 post-mortem dinner saying that he’d prefer more sponsors with lower cash amount, to one big sugar-daddy. BarCampBlock had a $300 limit on cash sponsorships, whether from corporations or individuals, and in the end had around 100 sponsors.

They did have some larger “in kind” donations: For example, Google ordered and paid for the pizza for Saturday’s lunch. (They also had the pizza delivered on a rolling-basis, every 15 minutes for an hour, so there was always fresh hot pizza.)

In return for sponsorship, companies got their name listed on the wiki, and in the map handout. No green t-shirts :)

4. Schwag

The name badges were band passes, from bandpasses.com.

Much better than “My Name Is…” stickers, they had the URLs for the wiki, backchannel and social networking site, plus space for three “tags”, so you could get a sense of people’s interests and icebreak with ease. (Photos) Lovely and collectible.

The first 500 attendees got a bandpass, a water bottle and a couple of BarCampBlock stickers and buttons. The water bottle was a nice touch, as it reduced the dependence on bottled-water, meaning less waste.

There was also a table set-aside for people to drop off their own schwag (pens, stickers, t-shirts etc.), which folks could rifle through.

5. Session times

Something we’ve struggled with. The first day, sessions were 30 minutes, with 15 minute gaps for walking. The second day, sessions were 50 minutes, with 10 minute gaps. I think this was a nice compromise, as it allowed folks to choose what length discussion they wanted, and could schedule for the appropriate day. And there were discussions that genuinely needed that full hour, and then some!

6. “Demo Camp”

At the end of the first day was a two hour block of 5-minute demos. This worked well for two reasons: 1) It gave the sponsors somewhere to show their wares to the assembled, and 2) It kept (most) egregious product-pitches from the session-times.

OK, that’s what’s bubbling through my head now. Comment/Questions?

August 19, 2007

Liz Henry: Organizing BarCampBlock

Great notes from Liz Henry on the (let’s be kind and call it “agile”) organization of BarCampBlock. Good stuff to keep in mind for next BarCampBoston.

Filed under : :

March 22, 2007

BarCampBoston2 Video Collage

Video snapshots from BarCampBoston2. Top middle is me over-excitedly and choppily-editedly raving about OpenID. See if you can spot the joke I stole from Simon Willison.

March 18, 2007

Pixels to Penguins

Aron Atkins’s first-prize-winning Flickr+MIDI+Tux mashup from BarCampBoston2’s Programming Contest. Enter a one-word keyword and hit the button.

BarCampBoston2 Programming Contest entries: BBQ Calculator

BarCampBoston2 Programming Contest entries: BBQ Calculator

"Boston Bar Queue Calculator". Won second place in the contest.

BarCampBoston2 Programming Contest entries: BBQ Calculator

BarCampBoston2 Programming Contest entries: BBQ Calculator

BarCampBoston2 Programming Contest entries: Match of the Penguins

BarCampBoston2 Programming Contest entries: Match of the Penguins

Messed-up sticker printing.

Messed-up sticker printing.

These are two of the original batch of stickers I got from PSPrint. (The middle logo is a printout on work laser printer). As you can see, the rich emerald green of the BCB2 logo got printed as a dirty greenish-gray.

Luckily, PSPrint were incredibly lovely and helpful in trying to rectify this at high speed, printing and shipping out replacements that were delivered Saturday morning.

Geneguin

Geneguin

Clearly some people are taking the BCB2 programming contest with the seriousness it deserves.

BarCampBoston2 laptop sticker

BarCampBoston2 laptop sticker

Alas, I didn't have them in time for Day 1, but the laptop stickers have arrived and I'll be handing them out today.

BarCampBoston - DayOneLinkDump

BarCampBoston2 got of to a roaring, if less-busy-than-planned-due-to-weather, start today.

First of all, the most important link—the one that I was asked for repeatedly throughout the day—is the source of the lolcats that I used to help time the 10-Second Introductions. You can find all the anthropomorphized cats you desire at I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?.

Onto less important matters… OpenID! If you want, you can grab a copy of my slides (though they are hopefully relatively useless if you didn’t see me present). Useful OpenID links:

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to exhume the presentation I gave last year, as I’ll be giving it again tomorrow morning due to “popular demand” (ie. one person asked me).

March 17, 2007

A gathering of OLPCs

A gathering of OLPCs

Several prototypes from the One Laptop Per Child program were brought along for geeks to play with. While I'm not going to give up my MacBook any time soon, they are beautifully designed for what they're needed to do.

BarCampBoston2 Programming Contest topic board

BarCampBoston2 Programming Contest topic board

To inspire programmers taking part in the 24-hour Programming Contest, a list of topics was drawn up and ten were drawn at random.

(This board was later amended to say "Convince us that you used at least 4...")

And no, I have no idea what "BBQ Calculator" means either.

OLPCs bring joy

OLPCs bring joy

Alan Taylor with a OLPC laptop.

OLPC Draws the Crowds

OLPC Draws the Crowds

SJ Klein of OneLaptopPerChild draws a big crowd during an impromptu demonstration over afternoon break.

Geek Debris

Geek Debris

IMG_0095.JPG

IMG_0095.JPG

BarCampBoston2 - Uploaded with a demo version of FlickrExport 2.

Populating the Schedule

Populating the Schedule

The chalkboard -- or "physical wiki" as I prefer to call it.

Programming Contest suggestion board

Programming Contest suggestion board

BarCampBoston2 - Uploaded with a demo version of FlickrExport 2.

IMG_0093.JPG

IMG_0093.JPG

BarCampBoston2 - Uploaded with a demo version of FlickrExport 2.

BarCampBoston2 Schedule (Saturday morning)

BarCampBoston2 Schedule (Saturday morning)

BarCampBoston2

March 12, 2007

BarCamp / BarCampBoston2

New England geeks, this is your five-day warning: BarCampBoston2 is this weekend, and looking like it’s gonna be a good ‘un.

February 27, 2007

Philip Greenspun's Weblog : Free helicopter rides for programmers

Stonking prize for the BarCampBoston2 programming contest — A free helicopter tour of Boston with PhilG as your pilot!

unconference the book

Wiki-based attempt to write a book about BarCamp and co.

Filed under : : :
via |

February 13, 2007

BarCamp / BarCampBoston2

BarCampBoston2 is on for March 17th & 18th, at the Stata Center at MIT.

June 4, 2006

Ingredients for Web 2.0 Success

Ingredients for Web 2.0 Success

"Pierre Francois from Underscore_ Consulting" (who looked alarmingly similar to Alexis from Reddit) did a great presentation, somewhat reminiscent of Stephen Colbert's "The Word" segment. The video should be up soon.

P1040230

P1040230

Filed under : :

P1040228

P1040228

Filed under : :

P1040227

P1040227

Filed under : :

P1040226

P1040226

Filed under : :

P1040225

P1040225

Filed under : :

P1040224

P1040224

Filed under : :

P1040223

P1040223

Filed under : :

June 3, 2006

Omniscient Debugging

Very cool Java debugging tool, which records your application’s entire state over runtime, and allows you to replay and debug it at a later date.

Filed under : : : : : : :

Monster Volunteers

Monster Volunteers

Filed under : :

Early Attendees

Early Attendees

Filed under : :

A Monster Volunteer who didn’t want to be photographed

A Monster Volunteer who didn’t want to be photographed

Filed under : :

Shimon & the Schedule Board

Shimon & the Schedule Board

This was right at the start of BarCamp, before it got completely filled for the day.

May 28, 2006

BarCamp / BarCampBoston

Only a week to go until the New England geek unconference. There’s a good mix of interesting folks signed up, so it should be a good time.

Filed under : : : :

About This Site

This is an archive of groovmother.com, the old blog run by Rod Begbie — A Scottish geek who lives in San Francisco, CA.

I'm the co-founder of Sōsh, your handy-dandy guide for things to do in San Francisco this weekend.