The big Thank You post
We have a lot of people to thank for helping put on BarCamp Brighton 2, please give us a minute to send some kudos their way…
First, the sponsors who gave us our food and drink, and paid for staffing of the venue: Singularity08, Yahoo Developer Network, e-consultancy, Madgex, Amazon Web Services, Cogapp, Microsoft Silverlight, iCrossing, Second Life, Realtime Worlds, and Chinwag
For providing the excellent venue, keeping an eye on us, serving us beer and grub, we thank the University of Sussex Students’ Union (USSU) and the University of Sussex
More thanks to Metranet who kindly donated the internet connection for the event. Especially Matt from Metranet and Mick from Fastnet who worked with the University technical staff to get the connection to Falmer House working in time for us, including some very last minute programming and routing to make sure it all worked.
For the projectors, thanks go to the Sussex Community Internet Project (SCIP), Paul Perrin, and the Media Services Unit.
Madgex once again gave us their excellent Backnetwork, letting us all connect up and see what each other are saying.
BarCamps are always about the people, and we’d like to thank some of the attendees for their help: Vicky Walburg, Dave Phelan and Jay for setting up a faultless wireless network for us to use. Madhava Bailey for his network wall, Premasagar Rose for streaming several talks on Yahoo Live, and Lincoln Smith for introducing everyone to Arduino goodness. Gillian Pearce and Mark Ng for helping with registration and Anna Fuller for helping man the front desk throughout the weekend.
Saving the biggest thanks for last: a huge thank you to Jay Gooby and Jonathan Markwell for being the main organisers of BarCamp Brighton 2. Jon navigated the myriad people at the University and Union, knitting together connections so they’d all agree to a large bunch of geeks taking over for a weekend, including overnight. Jay gathered loads of sponsorship from local and national companies which made the whole event possible, and let us give out 50% more tickets than last time. Jon and Jay also did a massive amount of running around over the weekend to make everything work and look seamless.
Apologies if I’ve missed anyone, I know Jon has a list of about 100 people he needs to thank, but he’s away at the moment. Hopefully he’ll fill in any big blanks I’ve missed when he gets back.
We hope everyone had a great time, whether you got to attend or watch it from afar on Prem’s Y!Live streams. Jay’s collecting volunteers to run BarCamp Brighton 3, if you’re interested in helping with that, please get in touch with him.
A quick post on the room names
As is traditional with Brighton B&Bs we thought we should have some quirky names for our rooms;
Boogaloo Stu – one half of the fabulous two-some, Boogaloo Stu & Dolly Rocket, he’s practically a Brighton institution
Boutique – as in expensive B&Bs and also a fantastic night out
Dirty Weekend – the traditional reason to visit Brighton
Fish & Chips – a healthy, sea-side alternative to pizza. Or curry. Or kebab.
Magnus Volk – electrical engineer and inventor built the world’s first public electric railway in Brighton, in 1883.
Regency – the period in British history named after George IV (the Prince Regent, prior to the death of his father, George III – famously mad, but due in fact to the blood disease, porphyria). The Regency period encompassed significant change in England’s economic and social circumstances, presaging the Victorian age. The then Prince Regent had the Royal Pavilion constructed as his sea-side retreat.
Seagulls – Brighton’s equivalent to the Trafalgar Square pigeons, loved by some, hated by many. Also the nickname for Brighton and Hove Albion FC (loved by some…)
Skint – a record label (home to just one or two Brighton faces), and traditional circumstance for our student population
Live Video!
We’re going to be streaming live video from BarCampBrighton2, using Yahoo’s new Live service. This will allow anyone from around the Web to tune in and watch the talks.
Yahoo Live makes it really easy to start broadcasting your own TV channel. However, there is no option to join groups… until now.
I’ve put together a Greasemonkey userscript called YLiveGroups that lets you join a group and see who else is online, so that you can keep track of the different broadcasts. At the moment, there is just one group: BarCampBrighton2.
The script was started on Wednesday evening and has just basic functionality at the moment, but expect to see some enhancements over the weekend – the script will tell you if an update is available.
Using YliveGroups
First, make sure you’re using the Firefox browser. Next, install Greasemonkey. Restart Firefox and install YLiveGroups. Then head on over to Yahoo Live.
You’ll see people who are at BarCamp in orange and others in blue. Those who are currently broadcasting video are shown in bold. So plug in and get streaming!
For more information about the project, including some technical details about how it was built at – YLiveGroups: Live Video at BarcampBrighton2.
Come and play LocoMatrix
On Saturday the chaps from LocoMatrix will demonstrate how you can play games in real life and on your mobile at the same time. Their games use GPS to tell the game where you are, so you play in a virtual world while moving around the real one.
They’re bringing some GPS receivers to show the game but have a limited number, so this is a shout out: if you have a Bluetooth GPS receiver, please bring it to BarCamp then you and anyone you’ll lend it to can try out the LocoMatrix games.
Chinwag – supporting BarCampBrighton2 and taking the industry’s pulse
Chinwag, friend to Flashers and Digital Marketeers alike, are rather kindly supporting BarCampBrighton. Thayer has been running a banner campaign across most of the Chinwag properties to help publicise the event, and Sam Michel, Chinwagger supremo, has put some cash towards the event for which we’re extremely grateful.
Their charitable work continues with the launch of the Chinwag Digital Pulse, which is a monthly snapshot of market conditions, career satisfaction, salary views, and more, all based on your input.
For each completed survey they’ll donate 25p to UK charity Macmillan Cancer Support and at the end of each month the survey results will be analysed to create a picture of market conditions.
incase you missed it http://bit.ly/knMT8 we have a new date 2nd & 3rd October 2010
Microsponsors
We are trying to raise at least £1000 £2000 £3000 from sole-traders, microbusinesses and small companies to make BarCampBrighton a truly local affair. If you'd like to show the Brighton geek•tech•hack•startup•social•design•gaming•mobile•robot•photo•blogging scene some ♥ please consider becoming a sponsor. Microsponsorships are just £100. So far we have raised £200. Find out more about becoming a sponsor →
