RasterWeb!I finally decided on a session for BarCampMadison… How Social Can You Get?
I’m hoping to look at the typical “social networks” like Myspace and Facebook, but also look at how sites like Digg, del.icio.us, last.fm, Flickr, and others leverage social networking to enhance what they are already offering.
Just got an email from Ken Rheingans, letting us know that BarCampMadison is all set, and will happen March 3rd & 4th, 2007 in Madison Wisconsin at the Inn on the Park Hotel.
Also, a big thanks to Stratagem for being the location sponsor and covering half of the net connection fees.
Expect a planning meeting in the beginning of January, and after that promotion and planning will go into full swing. Let’s make this as awesome (if not more awesome) than BarCampMilwaukee.
I picked up an old overhead projector from WCTC during one of their auctions of old equipment.
For those of you who attended elementary school 20 or more years ago, you may remember these things. They were used by teachers in classrooms before PowerPoint existed.
It’s old-tech, but still cool. This one is a pre-1988 model, but since it says “WCTI” I’m guessing it’s even older, and it still works fine. When you did a presentation on one of these you didn’t have to worry about VGA adapters, resolution, or file formats. Of course, you did have to worry about the bulb burning out.
I’m not 100% sure what I’ll do with this, but I can come up with a few interesting ideas. (One involves projecting words/images onto the building across the street.)
The first official Web414 meeting was last night, and it went well. It was the first time at the IT Fusion Business Center. (One thing we learned was that you can probably park on the street right out front, the meters are free after 6PM.) Justin said we can probably meet in this location until June. Jeramey said we could also use the MSOE Kern Center if needed.
Justin borrowed a projector, but long-term it would be nice to have a projector for the group, or at least a list of folks we could borrow one from. Chad was able to plug in his Airport Base Station and give us all a wifi connection.
We discussed the new group, and talked about how it would work (no specific leader, group effort, ad-hoc and BarCamp-like.) The site is running Drupal, and we would like to modify it (through modules) to match the features Meetup.com provided.
For the January 2007 meeting (and all future meetings) we’re hoping to have a presentation on a specific topic. John mentioned talking about how he makes a living publishing information on his web site. It would also be nice to see guest speakers in the future as well.
(This is cross-posted from my Web414 blog…)
Back in May I attended a Milwaukee Web Design Meetup, and found out there was a small but dedicated group of people in the Milwaukee area interested in getting together and discussing the building of the web.
Then in October we had BarCampMilwaukee and came to realize that maybe there are more people out there interested in web design & development. I think a lot of us wanted to see the BarCamp spirit carry on to other things, and I think that’s one of the basic ideas behind Web414.
Web414 will be replacing the Milwaukee Web Design Meetup group in 2007. We’re hoping all members make the move with us, but we are also hoping to expand and welcome new people. Freelancers, designers, developers, usability folks, anyone interested in the future of the web and making it happen.
The site at Web414.com is still in it’s early stages, but you can sign up now to follow what we are doing. (And if you’re more of a traditional designer, there’s always Design414.)
So if you’re interested, join us December 14th, 2006 to discuss the future of the group.