Tag: barcampmilwaukee

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BarCamp Planning

I am writing this post because I promised I would, and dammit, I keep my word!

But seriously, go read what Crystal has to say in her post: Ten Steps to Organizing a BarCamp. Below are just my own notes from helping to organize BarCampMilwaukee2. (Please note I said helping to organizing. It’s definitely a team effort, and none of us could have done it alone, so build a good team!)

We found a mailing list essential. This was the way ideas got out there and discussed. We wanted to keep things in the open, so almost all conversation through email was public, and anyone could join the list. If someone had something to offer, we wanted them to be able to without feeling like they had to join some secret club.

We met in person a number of times. Typically we’d do in-person discussions and try to make decisions. Again, these meeting were public and announced on the mailing list. Afterwards, we posted the results to the mailing list and web site for people to comment on. Through this process we hoped no one was feeling left out due to missing meetings. We felt that if you made the effort to make your voice be heard, someone would listen.

We had a great core group for BarCampMilwaukee2, so tasks got broken up pretty well. Shirt art and ordering, table-renting, projector-finding, mailing list managing, web site building, food/beverage shopping, meal planning, sponsor-wrangling, money co-ordinating… Luckily no single person got stuck doing all of those things. In some cases people did more than one task, but they usually had help, or backup as well.

Community building is a big part of BarCamp, and we definitely did that this time around, through the process of planning, as well as the event itself. Personally, this is one of the main reasons I am involved with BarCamp, to build community, meet new people, make connections – even if they are not directly involving me – I find it amazing that Person X and Person Y, whom I both knew prior to BarCamp, now seem to be great friends and hang out together, that’s the coolest part. Robots and promoting technology are cool, but for me it’s all about community.

A big thanks goes out to our sponsors and participants, we’ll see you again in the Fall of 2008.

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BarCampMilwaukee2: Success!

Well, somehow we pulled off another BarCamp in Milwaukee, and now BarCampMilwaukee2 is over.

A huge thanks goes out to the people and the sponsors who made it happen, without them, there would have been no BarCampMilwaukee2. Will we do it again? Oh yes… In fact, we had a session yesterday for the planning of BarCampMadison2, and if all goes well, that will happen in the Spring of 2008. There was a guy there from Green Bay who is also interested in doing one up there. We are also (tentatively) planning a DrupalCamp for January of 2008. It would be a much smaller and focused one day event. We’re pretty sure we can do this at a relatively low cost, and if it works, we can look at doing other *Camps. I tossed out the idea of KidCamp and at least a few people liked the sound of that. (The idea being, kids are often more creative than adults so so what can we learn from them?)

Clint, Zon, and The Illustrious Bean

All in all, it was a great time, and many new connections were made. We even launched a web site at ihatetreehouses.info (Story coming soon on that one!)

You want photos? Oh yes, Flickr has many with the tag barcampmilwaukee2. (We convinced most people to use Creative Commons licenses with their images.)

I was going to call this post “BarCampMilwaukee2 is over” but really, it’s not. There is follow-up to do and take-away to discuss. As time allows, I’ll be posting more on specific session and ideas and things that happened, so stay tuned.




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BarCampMilwaukee2: In 1 Week

There’s just one week until we kick-off BarCampMilwaukee2. It has all the makings of a great event. As of right now there are 180+ people signed up to attend, there are a ton of great session ideas, and thanks to the generous donations of all of our sponsors, we can afford to provide free shirts to everyone who pre-registered (before Oct. 1st, 2007) and we should be able to provide food for all who come as well. (This should let people focus on the event and not worry about where to go for a meal.)

I’m really proud of, and thankful to, the people who stepped up to do all the little things involved in getting ready for this event. Even with the load being distributed, I still feel like I have a million things to do. Presentations? I’m not sure if I’ll have anything prepared ahead of time. That’s OK, I’ve gotten used to winging it. The next week is going to be insane for me, and then I’m out of town for a few days right after BarCamp. Don’t worry though, we’re already planning the next *Camp. (I’m personally aiming for DrupalCamp…)

So one more time, in case I haven’t overdone it: BarCampMilwaukee2 will take place Saturday October 13th, 2007 through Sunday October 14th, 2007 at the Schlitz Park Center, 1555 Rivercenter Dr. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The event will run non-stop from Saturday morning at 10AM until Sunday afternoon at 4PM. (You are welcome to attend any time you are available.) Visit barcampmilwaukee.com for more info, and to sign-up.




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BarCampMilwaukee2 at Schlitz Park Center

We stopped by the new venue for BarCampMilwaukee2 on Saturday… if you missed the news, we had to change venues, as Bucketworks will not be ready in time to host the event. Bucketworks is still involved, and are the ones who managed to get this new space for us. Anyway, we took a look at the place, and did a bit of cleanup and planning. The new space provides some challenges, but nothing we can’t overcome. First, some photos…

Schlitz Park Center

This is what you will be looking for when you arrive at BarCampMilwaukee2. That’s the door you go in. You may need to give your name to a security guard, so make sure we have your real name.

Inside the place, it’s pretty much wide open. We’ll do our best at breaking up the space, there are not really separate rooms, it’s just one big room. (It was a cube farm.) There are outlets as needed, but bring a power strip. There should be wifi access points, BUT! (and here’s the BIG BUT) We have no connection to the internet! Yup, that’s right… as of right now, there is no connection to the outside world, which, sort of sucks. This is the biggest problem we have to fix. And we’ve got under 30 days to do it. If you can help with this, let us know. It’s top of the list right now.

And now, more photos…

Put the wires in the holes! Photo by Gabe Photo by Gabe Photo by Gabe

Some good news: We will have plenty of parking, there are bathrooms and vending machines right outside the big room, the floors are carpeted and nice to sit on. It’s clean, there are nice windows to look out of, and… it’ll work. We really could use an internet connection though…

Schlitz Park Center (Panorama)

One more photo, a panoramic view of the whole space. You’ll really need to view the large version for the full effect…

(P.S. If you can help us get an internet connection, please let us know.)



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BarCampMilwaukee2 Moves Forward

Shirt

As of this week we have a month until BarCampMilwaukee2 happens, and things are pretty much on schedule. There is one big change of note though, it will not be held at Bucketworks.

Bucketworks moved into their new home just a few months ago, and they still aren’t settled. While it would have been a great venue for the event, we just couldn’t make it happen in time. A lot of people pitched in to help get Bucketworks ready, and I personally appreciate all of the effort, and hope people don’t feel it was wasted. The concept of Bucketworks (a physical wiki) is a great one, and Bucketworks will continue, we just can’t pull off having BarCampMilwaukee2 there.

That said, Bucketworks is still our venue sponsor and did find a new location! There are some photos and a video of the space, and we’ll have more details when they are available.

So it is happening, there is no doubt about that. We just moved it. Just like those people who move your cheese. Sort of.

So if you are interested in attending BarCampMilwaukee2 on Oct 13/14, 2007, please sign up on the site. I look forward to seeing you there. Oh, and sign up sooner rather than later, because it will help with capacity planning, and help to ensure that you get a shirt, and some food to eat. (And if you have money, we’d like it even more if you went to the donation page. :)