Barcamp Bangalore 2:an organizer's perspective
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Barcamp Bangalore 2 happened @ thoughtworks on Dec 2 - 3 with the same energy and excitement that contained in the last edition.Unlike the last event it was 2 day event with totally around 300 people turning up.The one difference as compared to 1st edition was that the VCs
and the startups had occupied the center stage.The 1st edition contained sessions with technical stuff while the 2nd edition contained sessions on the pros and cons of running a startup,the VCs' blah blah,a bit tech stuff and also about pulao..(not a typo).
For the listed of sessions go here
For the slides go here
For the snaps go here
For the videos go here
This edition is close to my heart as I was one of the organizers and got to meet some of the top bloggers in india - kiruba and jace.Another notifiable entity that requires a mention is the venue - Thoughtworks.Really a kewl place to work in.On entering the office you see a large hall with full of tables with employees sitting around..exactly similar to you having your dinner with your families in a dinning table.You can see people playing carom and written posters pasted on the walls all around the office.One poster had the header "Regular late comers to stand up"..Not that they are imposing rules on you,its just a way of professionalism @ TW.On the day of the event the TW authorities were fitting in a electrical cigarette lighter in their smoking zone.Is this the reason behind TW's very very low attrition rate?In the last 1 year or so TW has lost 2 people.On the technical front,TW is the leader in the applications developed with Agile methodology,also recognized as a thought leader in tech enterprise agile."Heavy lifting" is what we call this.It also depicts on their logo..a lean guy lifting an elephant.TW has also contributed in large to the open source community.They are not kidding.just check out the opensource contributions from them.Mind blowing...Most of these are initiatives from the employees themselves.Did you know that Junit, ant, Ibatis, eclipse, cruise control, jmock,maven and many more have contributions from the employees of Thoughtworks..
Oh now i seem to be deviating from the title.Ok fine. Now I would like to share the experiences of organizing the barcamp bangalore 2 event,So that it would helpful to the people who would like to organize the event in the future.
and the startups had occupied the center stage.The 1st edition contained sessions with technical stuff while the 2nd edition contained sessions on the pros and cons of running a startup,the VCs' blah blah,a bit tech stuff and also about pulao..(not a typo).
For the listed of sessions go here
For the slides go here
For the snaps go here
For the videos go here
This edition is close to my heart as I was one of the organizers and got to meet some of the top bloggers in india - kiruba and jace.Another notifiable entity that requires a mention is the venue - Thoughtworks.Really a kewl place to work in.On entering the office you see a large hall with full of tables with employees sitting around..exactly similar to you having your dinner with your families in a dinning table.You can see people playing carom and written posters pasted on the walls all around the office.One poster had the header "Regular late comers to stand up"..Not that they are imposing rules on you,its just a way of professionalism @ TW.On the day of the event the TW authorities were fitting in a electrical cigarette lighter in their smoking zone.Is this the reason behind TW's very very low attrition rate?In the last 1 year or so TW has lost 2 people.On the technical front,TW is the leader in the applications developed with Agile methodology,also recognized as a thought leader in tech enterprise agile."Heavy lifting" is what we call this.It also depicts on their logo..a lean guy lifting an elephant.TW has also contributed in large to the open source community.They are not kidding.just check out the opensource contributions from them.Mind blowing...Most of these are initiatives from the employees themselves.Did you know that Junit, ant, Ibatis, eclipse, cruise control, jmock,maven and many more have contributions from the employees of Thoughtworks..
Oh now i seem to be deviating from the title.Ok fine. Now I would like to share the experiences of organizing the barcamp bangalore 2 event,So that it would helpful to the people who would like to organize the event in the future.
- send a mail to the groups about your interest of organizing the event and request for volunteers,there are so many geeks raring to go.I am sure you will get many.
- meet at a place ..if in Bangalore my choice would be coffee day ,indranagar.A silent place to have longing sessions without the fear of the authorities shooing you away.
- create a motley crew mail listing.
- decide a date and venue,update the wiki.FYI Thoughtworks is ready to organize the next edition too.
- Find sponsors.My experience is that finding the sponsors is not the most difficult of the activities.Given the popularity of the Barcamp ,most of them would be knowing about it,else just request them to DTFGS.
- spread the message like fire..In other words...blog,blog and blog..
And what? you are ready to enjoy yet another edition of the barcamp.
The organizing team.
The organizing team.
Left to Right:Puneeth,Apoorva,Amit,Kesava,myself,Aditya and Arpit
At the end of day 2 we had some lighter moments to share..
P.S:The one complaint we received from the participants was the scarce population of the female gender.So future organizers please make a note of it.
Labels: bangalore, barcamp, barcampbangalore2, december 2006, event, moltey crew, organize, organizing, sponsors, thoughtworks
2 Comments:
heheh the complaint is genuine..so next time u ppl r gonna take care of that rt..:)
7:26 AM
to say the truth we were blind on the requirements of the female gender...may be we should include some topics on rangoli and cookery next time..may be this will attract a lot of attention with them..
10:52 PM
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