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. ]]> http://www.barcampbrighton.org/2008/03/25/the-big-thank-you-post/feed/ 0 http://www.barcampbrighton.org/2008/03/15/a-quick-post-on-the-room-names/ http://www.barcampbrighton.org/2008/03/15/a-quick-post-on-the-room-names/#comments Sat, 15 Mar 2008 17:50:00 +0000 Jay Caines-Gooby http://www.barcampbrighton.org/?p=155 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

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.

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.

guardian.co.uk’s Tech Weekly journalist, Aleks Krotoski

Guardian Tech Weekly correspondent and Games Blogger, Aleks Krotoski is attending BarCampBrighton. She’ll be capturing sounds for a feature the Guardian is hoping to do on BarCamps for its Tech Weekly podcast.

Tech Weekly has a regular two minute slot called the Elevator Pitch where they ask a start-up ten simple questions. The aim is to get as much information about an idea in as short a time as possible, and then chew on it afterwards during the discussion. You can read some prior Elevator Pitches in the Guardian’s Digital Content blog.

If you or your start up would like to be interviewed by Aleks over the weekend, then leave a comment below with your name and the name of your start-up. Good luck!

They’re currently recruiting for 17 positions in art, design, development, production, QA and web. You’d either be working on their recently unveiled MMO APB or their latest major un-disclosed project.

If you’re a software engineer specialising in graphics or networking, then they’d really like to hear from you. Even if none of the roles quite sound like your thing, then drop them a line anyway as they can be flexible for the right kind of person.

With only four days to go, BarCampBrighton2 is shaping up into one not to miss! It looks like we’ll have a really interesting games slant this time, given that we’ve got a bunch of Lindens attending, a presentation from TwoFour on immersive gaming technologies in education and the guys from Six to Start behind solving and creating some of the best ARGs out there.

If you’d like to attend, then we have a few places left due to last-minute cancellations. Make sure you’re familiar with the rules of BarCamp before you sign up. See you there!

Linden Lab, the people behind Second Life have their UK base right here in Brighton, so we’re delighted to announce the support of such a huge international name and local company to boot.

As well as donating some of their fab glowing cubes for the Arduino workshop, Linden are sponsoring USSU’s Saturday staffing costs (we’re still looking for a sponsor for Sunday; £500 or L$264,920 ;) – please get in touch if you’d like to help).

Linden Lab are recruiting for a wide-range of positions in development, operations, marketing and customer relations, all of which can be based at the Brighton office. A number of Lindens are coming to BarCamp, so if you’d like us to introduce you, so you can have an informal chat about working on Second Life, then drop us a line or leave a comment below.

And thanks to Project Brighton, I’ve just noticed that the web team at Sussex University have recreated the campus in Second Life, so you can even have a look round prior to BarCamp next week…

Breakfast and registration for BarCampBrighton2 opens at 10am on Saturday 15th March. The introductory talks start at 11am and the first talk of the day is scheduled for 12pm.

You’ll need to make your way to the University of Sussex, Falmer campus and head for Falmer House which is the Student Union (USSU) building. Please note that Brighton University and Sussex University are opposite each other at Falmer, so make sure you head for the Sussex campus.

Trains run from Brighton station every 15 minutes. Car parking will be available and we expect it to be free.

If you’re coming from London by train, then head to Brighton station first and get a Falmer train from there. If you’re driving, follow Paul’s directions in the comments below.

Firstly and most importantly, if you’re unsure whether you’ll actually be coming or not, then please decide now. We have a waiting-list of people who’d like your ticket. Email jay@gooby.org if you know you won’t be coming.

Secondly, if this is your first BarCamp, please come ready with a talk or topic or game or discussion idea. It doesn’t need to be polished, but as BarCamps are unconferences where the schedule is set by the you attendees, everyone is expected to contribute. If you’re stuck for ideas on what to do, or aren’t clear on what this means, then please read our previous post Unconferencing; like fight club* but with 30 minute talks.

Part of the BarCamp ethos is the overnight aspect. The Saturday schedule runs until 8.30pm. After that it’s traditional to socialise, drink a beer or two (in addition to the free beer courtesy of YDN, there’ll be a pay-bar that’ll be open until you stop buying), hack some code and play some games.

We’ll be crashing out in the comfy common room, but you’ll want to bring at the very minimum a sleeping bag. We’d also suggest something like a bedroll or beanbag. At the last BarCampLondon, Google provided tent inners to sleep in. We can’t quite stretch to that, but feel free to bring your own (inner only; there’s nowhere to bang the pegs in :P) if you fancy a little more privacy than just crashing out on the floor.

If you really don’t fancy staying overnight, then trains back to Brighton run until 00:45 on Sunday morning (arrives Brighton 01:09am) and there’s an all-night bus service.

Good places to stay are Jury’s Inn (a minute from the station) plus any number of B&Bs, although many of these won’t do one-night stays over a weekend, so you’d need to book for either Friday and Sat or Sat and Sunday. It varies so try a few.

In addition to your sleeping bag and a change of clothes, you’ll want a wash bag (sorry, no showers available), a VGA adaptor for your laptop if you want to use a projector, your laptop and its charger and some cash for the (cheap!) pay-bar that’ll be open until you stop buying drinks.

We’ll be providing you with (courtesy of our fantastic sponsors) breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and refreshments plus some beers on the Saturday. And breakfast, lunch, snacks and refreshments on Sunday.

For any of you heading down to Brighton on Friday night and wanting to have a pre-BarCamp pint or two in Brighton itself, comment below and we’ll sort out somewhere to meet. I know I’ll be wanting a beer as it’s my birthday :D

Any questions, then please comment below and keep and eye on the responses.

At BarCamp it’s traditional to show a film that illustrates the ethos of BarCamp and then for everyone to briefly introduce themselves. At the UK ‘camps that I’ve attended, this has been in the “three tags” format; i.e. you say the three things that most interest you.

Due to the number of people attending this BarCamp and the need to discuss various housekeeping issues as well as doing the introductions, we’re going to dispense with the film.

That said, if you’ve never been to a BarCamp before it’s certainly worth watching. So rather than do away with the tradition completely, why don’t you put some pop-corn in the microwave, dim the lights and have a gander.