Tuesday, July 25, 2006

More great BarCampRDU coverage

Jon Hill has produced what I consider a most excellent wrap-up of BarCampRDU for WCHL 1360. You can take a listen here (direct mp3 link). This also nicely follows Rick Smith's wrapup coverage of BarCampRDU on the Tech Wire. I've had a great time reading the coverage of the event; interestingly, BarCampRDU was such a blogosphere phenomenon we actually hit TechMeme this morning. Woot!

Monday, July 24, 2006

BarCampRDU Wrap-Up

(Cross posted from Fred's blog)

This weekend, over 150 geeks of all flavor gathered at Red Hat HQ on NC State's Centennial Campus to have a BarCamp. I'm still recovering, but I think it is safe to say the event was a success, and a great model for future BarCamps in the area. It was just a fantastic, positive experience to bring all sorts of different folks together, from all walks, and to spend the day sharing, collaborating and learning. With help from Paul Jones, here's a roundup of the BarCampRDU coverage.

Media:
Blogs
Pics
Of course, BarCampRDU wouldn't have happened without its host, sponsors, committee, volunteers and donors. Here's a list of those who helped so generously.

Venue
Sponsors
Donors
Design
  • Kelly Marks - Designer of the awesome T-shirts and Banner
  • The Merch - Screenprinters of the awesome T-shirts
Organizers
Volunteers
  • Lourdes Cueva Chacon
  • Wayne Sutton
  • Adam Constabaris
  • Michael Habib
  • Ben Adlard
  • Scott Lundgren
  • Jerry Waller
  • Didier Deshommes
  • Katie Jamison
  • Erica Tsai
Of course, thank you to all of the people who brought routers and power strips, to those who led sessions, to those who helped clean up and leave Red Hat sparkling. Thanks to those who came up to me and introduced themselves and said nice things. Thanks to those who came out and believed that we could pull this off. I hope this list shows that an event like BarCampRDU is only possible with the help of many individuals. This team came together like super bowl champions.

At the beginning of an unconference, it is common to ask for a show of hands to see how many people had attended an unconference before. I did this at the beginning of BarCampRDU, and I'd say about 5% of the room raised their hands. The beauty of the format is that once you do it, you get it - and can see its uses in many different contexts. At the end of the day, many people were talking about doing smaller unconferences, unconferences within their companies, and so on. Of course, there was also a lot of talk about when the next BarCampRDU was going to be. I do believe a hallmark of this event's success will be the fact it lives on. Hopefully, many more will be able to experience triangle-area BarCamps in the future; I have a good feeling this was just the first of many BarCamps will have in the area.

PS - If I've forgotten anyone on my thank you's, please let me know so I can add them to this list. My apologies in advance.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

3 days out!

BarCampRDU is only three days away - here's a couple updates on things.

1) I've been gardening the wiki to prepare it for BarCampRDU. Check it out at http://barcamp.org/BarCampRDU.

2) We still need people to bring Wireless routers. If you can bring yours, add your name to the list here: http://barcamp.org/BarCampRDU#ImportantInformation

3) We've got plenty of space left for the party Friday night at Tylers. So come out, mingle, get your badge, and enjoy free food and drinks. Come hungry and thirsty! The event is from 7 to 9PM at Tyler's in Durham (American Tobacco Campus, near the Durham Bulls stadium).

4) The doors for BarCampRDU will open at the ridiculously early time of 8AM. You can come early and avoid lines and make sure we're got your t-shirt size in stock. We'll have breakfast and coffee ready for you, as well.

5) The lunch for BarCampRDU will be from Neomonde Deli. Neomonde is excellent Mediterranean food, so there will be plenty of vegetarian options.

6) Resume Swap is still on. If you're in the market for a job, bring a couple paper copies of your resume. I know a few companies will be looking to talk with candidates at BarCampRDU!

Finally, we've cleared the waiting lists and opened BarCampRDU up to everyone who wanted to attend. We're so happy that you all could make it. Weather looks hot for Saturday but now *as hot* as its been lately. Sunday's high is 81, holy cow!

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

BarCampRDU Info

Only a few more days till BarCamp! Here's some stuff you need to know.
  • BarCampRDU doors will open at 8AM on Saturday. Get here early to avoid the rush.
  • We need people to bring WAPs. Can you bring yours? If so, configure i to broadcast "BarCampRDU" as the SSID. You'll just plug it in the wall on the day of. Label your WAP.
  • We need people to bring power strips AND extension cords. Bring one and share alike. Label your cords and power strips.
  • BarCamp confirmed attendance is at almost 120, and we've got a few spots left for the pre-event. If you haven't confirmed, do it now as you'll lose your spot on Thursday!
  • BarCamp will end around 6, rather than 5:30. This is so we can accomodate 4 afternoon time slots.

Tackle Design Donates Coffee Equipment

I wanted to take a second and send a big thanks to Chuck Messer and the team from Tackle Design for providing the BarCampRDU coffee equipment. Chuck actually deserves dual kudos, because he secured our worth-its-weight-in-gold beans donation by Larry's Beans!

A BarCamp without coffee is a particularly frightening thought. Besides the general chaos and revolt that would take place, we wouldn't get anything done. Chuck and his team have kindly solved this problem for us!

Friday, July 14, 2006

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Closing in on a week!

In a little over a week we'll be meeting at BarCampRDU! I'm quite excited and I hope you are too. Over the course of the next week you'll get a few more informational emails that will prove useful if you're attending BarCampRDU.

Today, the barcamp.org site went down for most of the day, so we'll extend the signup deadline by a day. As right now, we're at 88 confirmed attendees. We expected some attrition, but - if you know someone who has signed up that hasn't confirmed, please ping him or her.

Some other things to plan for - we'll need people to bring the following things to BarCampRDU:

  • Power strips - If you're coming to BarCampRDU, bring a power strip! We're going to need lots of power at the event.
  • Wireless Access Points - Yes, BarCampRDU needs connectivity. Bring your WAP from home, and you can just plug it into the wall at RedHat. We're really going to need people to bring these - a conference like BarCamp uses tons of bandwidth, so the more WAP's, the better. I'll send more info on this as we get close to the event.
  • Projectors - We will need a few people to bring projectors. We can wrangle a few up from RedHat, but we need a few people to volunteer.

Today, we picked up the BarCampRDU T-shirts and they are awesome!!!! Thanks to Kelly Marks for donating her time and patience!

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Important: Two-Week Confirmation, Pre-Event Signup

Hello BarCampers!

In just a few days, it will be two weeks until BarCampRDU! Very exciting.

We've got a very long waiting list for BarCamp, and I'd like to accommodate as many of these folks as possible. To do this, I've got to have a good count on how many people are coming to BarCamp.

The task is simple - if you are a registered BarCamper, I will need you to add your name to a list of "confirmed attendees". This has been a requirement since we started taking names on the wiki, so no groaning.

There are a few rules:
  1. If you are in the list of 150, you need to add your name to the confirmed list. Please don't remove your name from the list of 150 on the front page, you just need to add it to the confirmed list. If you are not in the 150, you may not add your name to the confirmed list.
  2. You have until 5PM on Tuesday, July 18th to do this. If your name isn't on the confirmed list at this time, you will lose your spot and someone from the waiting list will get it.
  3. When you add your name to the confirmed list, we will use your spelling and formatting on the badges. You may also include your company affiliation if you would like this printed on the badges.
  4. Work together. If your friend is signed up for BarCamp and hasn't put their name on the list, send them an email and remind them. We don't want people to lose their spots just because they didn't read this post.
And finally, to make the deal a little sweeter, this officially marks the beginning of signup for the BarCampRDU pre-event. The pre-event will be held at Tyler's Taproom in Durham on Friday, July 21 from 7-9PM. It will feature free food and drinks for all attendees. The pre-event is only for confirmed BarCampRDU attendees, and the event is capped to the first 75 attendees.

Here are the all-important links:
Confirmed Attendees List: http://barcamp.org/BarCampRDUConfirmedAttendees
Pre-Event Signup: http://barcamp.org/BarCampRDUPreEventSignup

So, BarCampers - we're in the final stretch. Just add your name to the confirmed attendee list, and you're all good. I've tried to keep this as simple as possible, so I hope you'll understand. Let me know if you have any questions!