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Latest Links - BarCampRDU 2009 edition

Dave Johnson — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:00:04 +0000

BarCampRDU 2009 was a great success, if I don't say so myself. Here's my brief review. We had excellent turn-out, lots of great session pitches and lots of great sessions. Everything went very smoothly and our estimates for meals, t-shirts and party-budget were spot on. We received lots of positive feedback on Twitter and blogs and at the event. We did have some difficulties with the PA system and a couple of projectors, but we got past them with a little help from our friends.

Here are the links I've rounded up since the event. If you want a taste of BarCampRDU 2009 then check Robert Fischer's excellent podcast and Tanner Lovelace's very-cool time-lapse set to spooky music.

Robert Fischer: "What's A BarCamp" Featuring BarCampRDU 2009
Excellent podcast that explains BarCampRDU and includes all session pitches
Tanner Lovelace: BarCampRDU 2009 Session Grid Timelapse:
3 minute time-lapse of session grid build, change and tear-down
eTechSuccess: BarCamp 2009
"BarCamp was well worth the time" plus a list of the sessions
Joe Gregorio | BitWorking | BarCamp RDU
"a well run event that was a lot of fun to attend"
Best Thing Ever: Getting Involved - NCSU Web Developers
"I got to meet a lot of really great folks"
Digital Papercuts: Triangle Tech Week Wrap-Up
"A big shoutout to [all] the organizers and volunteers for a great unconference"
Matthew Bass - BarCampRDU was a rousing success
"I heard several attendees comment that the presentations outdid last year's camp"
BarCampRDU weekend is here!
Thanks to host Red Hat all the BarCampRDU 2009 sponsors!

We might have to do it again next year

BarCampRDU coming up soon, still needs sponsors

Dave Johnson — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:54:59 +0000

BarCampRDU 2009 is rapidly approaching (August 8, 2009) and the event is sold out with 250 registered attendees. Problem is, we're only about halfway to our funding goal. I guess it could be the economy or maybe it's event overload; doesn't it seem like we had a heckuva lot of tweetup-camp-athons around here lately?

Either way, we're not ready to give up yet. We're doing another call for sponsors and trying to open up as many sponsor opportunities as possible. Check out the BarCampRDU blog for more information.

Big thanks to all for BarCamp RDU 2008!

Dave Johnson — Mon, 4 Aug 2008 11:00:00 +0000

To the campers, volunteers and sponsors of BarCamp RDU 2008,

Thanks for making BarCamp RDU 2008 a wonderfully successful event! We brought together around 150 of the best and brightest developers, web technologists, designers, scientists, entrepreneurs, social media experts and open source advocates in the Triangle area and surrounding regions. Anybody who wanted could pitch a session and we ended up with 41 sessions on topics of software development, business, social media, science, education and even cross step waltz. We learned a heck of a lot from each other and had a lot of fun in the process.

Below is the session grid that the attendees put together.

At Flickr.com

You can find a list of the sessions, broken down by category and room size here:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pxWBlx3_nQhOhwUH1jWnfMw

Thanks to our generous host Red Hat, we were able to provide excellent facilities with a variety of rooms, white boards, projectors, a public address system. Thanks to our financial sponsors, we enjoyed a pre-party at Tyler's Tap Room in Durham, NC on the Friday evening before camp. And we enjoyed a breakfast of bagels, fruit and coffee. We had lunch from NeoMonde restaurant and provided plenty of sodas and water throughout the day. Clearwire was on site to ensure we had sufficient Wifi coverage for attendees.

We took time to thank our sponsors at the event, on the events web page, in our blog posts about the event, on the back of the t-shirts and on signs placed prominently around the venue. Below is an example.

At Flickr.com

Let's thank them one more time! Big thanks to BlueStripe Software, Canonical, Carborro Creative Coworking, Design Hammer, Edge Office, IBM developerWorks, iContact, Lulu.com, Montie Design, OpenNMS.org, Red Hat, rPath and Viget Labs.

In past years, BarCamp RDU led by Fred Stutzman.
This year the organizing committee was:

Dave Johnson (coordination and sponsors)
Wayne Sutton (t-shirts and technology)
Greg DeKoenigsberg (facilities and coordination)
Andi Johnson (budget and vendors)
Kipp Bodnar (voluneer coordinator)
Matt Frye (Coffee and sound)
Scott Morningstar (Badges)
Fred Stutzman and others monitored our mailing list to make sure we didn't panic

And we had help from a dozen or so volunteers on site. There were a couple of hiccups and things to be improved next year, but overall we think this was the best BarCamp RDU yet and Fred agrees. We're looking forward to doing it again so it won't be too long before you're hearing from us about the next BarCamp RDU.

Thanks again for your support!

PS. here are some more links about BarCamp RDU 2008

Pictures at Flickr.com:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fstutzman/tags/barcamprdu2008
http://www.flickr.com/photos/snoopdave/tags/barcamprdu2008
http://www.flickr.com/photos/waynesutton/tags/barcamprdu2008
http://www.flickr.com/photos/photo_td/tags/barcamprdu2008

Blog posts and articles tagged with barcamprdu2008:

http://delicious.com/tag/barcamprdu2008

And a lot of folks were Twittering about BarCamp RDU too:

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=barcamprdu

BarCamp fun for the whole family

Dave Johnson — Sat, 2 Aug 2008 23:18:08 +0000

BarCamp RDU was great fun this year and I'll probably blog a bit more about it later, but for now here's my favorite picture from the event; taken by Fred Stutzman, who led the event in 2007 and 2008. It's my son Alex (11), using Wayne Sutton's cell-phone to stream video of me giving the opening intro:

Alex really enjoyed helping out and he attended sessions on his own including iPhone development and file system encryption, and he got to play werewolf for the first time.

Triangle is hopping!

Dave Johnson — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 10:09:54 +0000

Joe Gregorio: Wow, the local area is really hopping these days, check out the 14 upcoming conferences, camps, workshops and events. Here's some video from the just passed RTP Startup Weekend, we've got coworking sites popping up, and of course a blog to cover it all.

That blog that Joe mentioned is new, NBC 17's 30threads.com, which launched last night at a very well attended blogger, beer and BBQ bash in the Edge Office coworking space in downtown Raleigh. The site is both a community aggregator and a blog authored by local/social media superheros Wayne Sutton and Ginny Skalski. Congrats to Ginny, Wayne and NBC 17 on a great launch and what looks to be a great new community site like no other in the Triangle.

BarCamp RDU 2008 pre-party

Dave Johnson — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 22:01:46 +0000

If you are one of the 250 lucky folks registered for BarCamp RDU 2008, then you are invited to a party! BarCamp RDU attendees, please join us at Tyler's Tap Room (map) in Durham's American Tobacco Historic District this Friday night to meet, greet and celebrate BarCamp eve with us. We'll be providing beverages (beer, wine, sodas, etc.) and light snacks (chips and salsa). See you there!

BarCamp RDU Pre-party
Friday August 1, 2008 from 7:30 - 9:00PM
Tyler's Tap Room
324 Blackwell St
Durham, NC 27701

And of course, the party would not be possible without the generous support of our most excellent sponsors: BlueStripe Software, Canonical, Carborro Creative Coworking, Design Hammer, Edge Office, IBM developerWorks, iContact, Lulu.com, Montie Design, OpenNMS.org, Red Hat, rPath and Viget Labs.

1 week 'til BarCamp RDU!

Dave Johnson — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 11:11:58 +0000

BarCamp RDU 2008 is one week from today and it's shaping up the be the biggest and I hope the best BarCamp RDU so far.

Here are a couple of notes for attendees:

Check the attendee list! On July 21, we decided we had budget and space to register everybody on the waiting list. If you were on the waiting list you are now registered to attend.

Remove yourself if you can't attend. If you registered but cannot make it, please remove your name from the list. For planning purposes, we need to have as accurate a count as is possible.

Propose sessions in advance. If you are interested in initiating or attending a session on a specific topic, then go right ahead and add your topic to the Proposed Sessions list.

Oh, and if you are interested in helping out with preparations or on the day of the event, then please let us know (dave.johnson at rollerweblogger.org or wayne at wayne-sutton.com)

And one final note. BarCamp RDU would not be possible without the very generous financial support of our sponsors and our host. So...

See you next Saturday at BarCamp RDU 2008!

Sixteen days until BarCamp RDU 2008

Dave Johnson — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:13:57 +0000

Just a gentle reminder that BarCamp RDU 2008 is coming soon. And one request. We've got 209 people registered and 31 on the waiting list so please help us out and if you registered but cannot make it, please remove your name from the list.

If you are interested in helping out with preparations or on the day of the event, then please let us know (dave.johnson at rollerweblogger.org or wayne at wayne-sutton.com)

Help sponsor BarCamp RDU 2008

Dave Johnson — Wed, 4 Jun 2008 17:27:33 +0000

After attending two great BarCamps here in Raleigh, I'm just as pleased as punch to be helping out on the BarCamp RDU organizing committee this year.

We put out the call for sponsors a couple of weeks ago and thanks to some generous sponsors including iContact, Canonical, rPath, Brian Russell, OpenNMS and Montie Design we quickly met 65% of our small budget. Now we need to wrap things up, money-wise. If you'd like to get some great positive exposure among the best and brightest in the local tech community by sponsoring, here's your chance.

If you're interested in sponsoring or helping out as a volunteer, contact me via email for more info (dave.johnson at rollerweblogger.org). If you're interested in attending, you'll have to add your name to the waiting list -- at this point we're sold out.