BarCampBrighton - 2nd & 3rd October 2010 » barcampbrighton3

Projectors and screens

Mark Kirby — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:54:58 +0000

So, its nearly BarCamp and we’re running round getting all the equipment sorted. We’d like to thank SCIP for helping us out at short notice with some of the projectors and screens we’ve been looking for.

We’re still searching for two more projectors and another screen at the moment, so if you think you might be able to lend us one for the weekend, please get in touch (send an email to bcb2 [at] googlegroups [dot] com).

Get set for the MySpace sessions

Mark Kirby — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 16:58:03 +0000

Our Gold sponsors, MySpace developer platform, are going to be running a session at BarCamp on cool stuff you can do with their API. If you miss the session, they will be on hand all through the event to talk to you, run demos and help you play with the API.

In order to take advantage and join in the fun however, you must sign up to the MySpace Developer Platform by this coming Wednesday, as it can take up to 2 days to be approved.

Signing up is a 2 step process:

Create a MySpace account or, if you have one Sign in to MySpace
Go to http://developer.myspace.com/modules/ apps/pages/ApplyDevSandbox.aspx and fill in the form (you have to fill in all the fields)
Then come along, meet MySpace and have a play!

Don’t miss The Guardian Breakfast

Mark Kirby — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 17:00:37 +0000

Good news! There will be an arrival breakfast, kindly sponsored by The Guardian. Make sure you get to the event for 10AM and fill yourself up for a day of fun sessions.

Here’s a message from the Guardian:

“Guardian.co.uk one of the largest news sites, with 18M international users, has won the Webby award for the Best Newspaper Website for the last 3 years.

Recently guardian.co.uk has undergone a transformation that has seen a redesign and a change in information architecture to be more resource oriented. Behind the scenes, the technology platform has been completely replaced and updated using agile development methods.

We’re really pleased to be sponsoring and taking part in Brighton’s 3rd BarCamp, and look forward to meeting you all there!”

Yes, we are pleased to announce The Guardian will be in attendence at the event – so keep an eye out for their talks! Thanks again guys.

Last mini-sponsor

Premasagar Rose — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:10:14 +0000

Great big thanks to our last mini-sponsor…

http://interesting.ly, the social RSS reader that learns from what you do elsewhere on the internet.

The BarCamp Brighton 3 Hackathon Challenge

Mark Kirby — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:07:53 +0000

We are running a Hackathon Challenge this year to keep you all busy over the weekend. The challenge is being set by our hosts at the Students Union. We thought we would detail the challenge here to give you a headstart – get your thinking caps on, prize and kudos for the winner!

John from the Students Union can explain the situation best:

“The Students’ Union is keen to improve its marketing of events & entertainments, general Union news/campaigns and Groups & Societies events across campus.

In both our bars we have 40” plasma screens that are rarely used. We could just connect a laptop direct to the screens and utilise Powerpoint or a similar presentation software to have scrolling/timed ‘adverts’ promoting any upcoming events and entertainments, but we feel that would just look a bit boring/old-hat & would ideally like to achieve a more modern/sexy solution that would be effective in marketing terms, whilst also helping to give a slight ‘lift’ to the bar environments.

There are commercial systems available (such as www.bigscreenonline.co.uk) , however they are very expensive (c.£4K per bar incl installation), and we simply can’t afford this, ☹

If possible, in an ideal situation we could really benefit from having a system whereby the screens could be connected to a laptop and have any combination of below possible (visible on-screen at the same time);

Allow maybe a small window to show TV (maybe Sky News or similar)
Have maybe a ‘portrait’ window that could show our latest posters advertising everything from Club-Nights, bands, comedy shows, Clubs & Societies events.
Another window showing/promoting food menu items, daily specials etc?
RSS feed?

If above is all too much for a small project, basically anything that could allow us to utilise the system to better promote all of above would be great!”

BarCampBrighton3 101 – how to get there, what to bring and more

Mark Kirby — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:11:39 +0000

With just over a week to go, here’s all the information you’ll need for the event.

Breakfast and registration for BarCampBrighton3 opens at 10am on Saturday 6th September. The introductory talks start at 11am and the first talk of the day is scheduled for 12pm.

Getting to BarCampBrighton3

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.

The most complete instructions on finding the location can be found here.

Here are a few of our tips as well:

Train

Trains run from Brighton station every 15 minutes.

If you’re coming from London by train, then head to Brighton station first and get a Falmer train from there.

By car

Car parking will be available.

From London: come down the A23 (from M23, Junction 7 on M25), then rather than coming in to Brighton take the turning left on to the A27 and to east – the signs are for Falmer / Lewes / Newhaven.

The campus is on the left side of the A27, it’s about 5-10 minutes along the road depending on speed. The road goes to three lanes just before the turn off – there’s a sharp entrance, or if you miss that go up to the roundabout in the main turn off and go left on to the campus.

Take the first left and drive down the hill to the free carparking at the bottom – P5, Sports centre parking (shown on the University campus maps bottom left).

Once you arrive

On arrival, you need to locate Falmer House – shown on the University campus maps (bottom left), we’ll be inside the entrance waiting for you.

First timers

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 advice on speaking at BarCamp.

Accommodation

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 Osmosoft, there’ll be a pay-bar that’ll be open until you stop buying), hack some code and play some games.

Some people will stick around for the entire night, or you may want to sleep somewhere a little more comfortable. 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.

What to bring

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.

Food and drink

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

Yahoo! Developer Network on board

Mark Kirby — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:16:25 +0000

We’re delighted to announce that the Yahoo! Developer Network have agreed to sponsor BarCamp. You may remember YDN from their sponsorship of the bar tab keeping Werewolf players refreshed on Saturday night during BarCampBrighton2.

The Yahoo! Developer Network recently redesigned their site so now its even easier to plug in to the Yahoo! API’s and create your own custom applications. Other new initiatives listed on their site include the 3.0 preview, Fire Eagle for location aware apps, the Yahoo! Music API and Zimbra Desktop Beta – taking Y! Mail and Gmail offline.

Its clearly an exciting time at YDN and its great to have them on board as sponsors.

Advice on speaking at BarCamp

Mark Kirby — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 17:17:50 +0000

Photos by Tantek, Roland, chesh2000 and Ian

BarCampBrighton is an unconference where every attendee is a participant. The schedule for the two days is empty until you arrive and the grid starts to get filled with the talks and sessions that you’ll be giving.

If this is your first time, this can all sound a bit daunting! Perhaps you didn’t realise that we expect you to a give a talk? Perhaps you’re now worried that everyone else is going to have a polished 30 minute talk with hundreds of fantastic slides?

Don’t worry! We’ve all been there. The real beauty of BarCamp is that it is what you make it and some of the best talks are given by people who have never presented before.

Here are a few tips to help you out

You have a 30 minute slot, it’s best to talk for 15-20 minutes and leave the rest as Q&A time
Talk about something you know well or are passionate about. It’s easier to talk with a flow when you know a subject well
Keep it loose. If you stand and read an exact script, you’ll probably end up being a bit dull. That said, do have some notes to keep you on track, just don’t make it too exact
If you’re using slides, try to bring them on a USB key as well, in case your laptop has a funny turn and you need to borrow someone else’s. VGA adaptors for your particular flavour of laptop are also a good idea
Don’t worry if you think no one is interested, there are lots of people coming, someone will be interested and come along. We have a variety of room sizes; the smallest capacity is 10 and the largest will take everyone.
Try to have fun! It may seem like a nightmare, but it can be really satisfying to kick off a good discussion after you’ve talked

If you’re petrified of speaking, you can run a workshop, or why not create a game for everyone to play. One of the liveliest sessions last year was Natalie Downe’s “Show and Tell” where she showed a few tips and tricks for apps she used and then gave the floor to someone else to do the same.

Have a look at last time’s schedule to get a feel for the broad range of topics that were covered. Don’t worry if you’re planning to talk about something that was on last year’s schedule; it’s pretty much an entirely different crowd, and people rarely get to see all the talks they want to anyway, so you may actually help someone out with your particular topic!

Connectivity at the event – thanks to Metranet and the Uni

Mark Kirby — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 17:19:06 +0000

Big thanks must go out to Metranet and IT Services at Sussex University who are organising connectivity at the event so we can all get online throughout the weekend.

Metranet is a locally based wireless internet service provider for business operating in and around the city of Brighton & Hove. Their founders were responsible for setting up Loose Connection, which some of you I’m sure will have heard of. If you run a business, they would be well worth investigating as a connectivity solution. They list plenty of reasons why over on their site.

NESTA sponsoring BarCamp Brighton 3

Mark Kirby — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:21:17 +0000

Big thanks go out to NESTA who will be paying towards the cost of the snacks, tea and coffee which will be available over the course of the weekend.

NESTA is the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts – a unique body with a mission to make the UK more innovative. They invest in early-stage companies, inform and shape policy, and deliver practical programmes that inspire others to solve the big challenges of the future.

We’re really pleased to have them on board.