OGN 17 on Wednesday
Oxford Geek Night 17 is happening, and it’s happening on Wednesday. That’s this Wednesday. So this week I’ve been running round the office like a headless chicken, and Lawrence has been helping to pick up the pieces. We’ve got posters printed off, and a Pitch sheet drawn up as well. That’s what we record the entries for The Pitch, our sixty-second open mic slots. We’ve still got a few spaces on that so you could tweet me on @jpstacey if you’re interested.
I’m really looking forward to our keynote talks on open-source licensing and user testing from Andrew Katz and Rebecca Gill, but we’ll also have a short announcement to make about the speaker for OGN18, scheduled for three months’ time on July 21st. We’ve got a great keynoter lined up for then but my lips are sealed until this Wednesday (note: lips not actually sealed.)
Along with Lawrence, Nick and Neal will be helping on the night of OGN17 with the tech and video, as usual. Together we’ll be like the four headless chickens of the apocalypse, so it promises to be quite a night.
Change of plan at OGN16
There’s been a change in the speakers for Oxford Geek Night 16 on Wednesday 17 February. We’re really happy that Chris Thorpe will still be giving his keynote talk, about how social media is all about the social and not about the media. Alongside Chris’ talk will be a keynote from Oxford’s very own Garrett Coakley, who will be talking about how to run a successful online community.
Garrett’s well placed to give this talk, having been an administrator of evolt.org and instrumental in the now very successful Oxford Flickr group, which has recently exhibited in central Oxford. He’s also fresh from discussing these very issues at the Leeds GeekUp in 20/20 form, so it should be pretty exciting. If not, then I know where he lives.
Brillskills. OGN16 is shaping up to be pretty darn fine, though I do say so myself. Be there, or don’t, fool.
Oxford Geek Night 15: open government and web marketing
OGN15 is in a bit over a week’s time, on Wednesday 25 November. It promises to be a great evening as usual, with varied keynote and microslot talks and the usual Oxford(shire) geek chat and networking.
Interestingly, we’ve ended up with common threads through the two quite different keynote talks. Fintan Galvin, who’s talking about the semantic web and its effect on marketing strategies on the web we’re more at home with, will be explaining how the former will change the way we think about such priorities as SEO with regard to the latter; along the way he’ll be mentioning Drupal, which is an ideal solution to a whole host of web content problems. Meanwhile, Jeni Tennison will talk about a new initiative in open UK government, data.gov.uk, which is currently in closed beta and uses a complex stack of technologies including… Drupal and RDF! RDF takes centre stage in the forthcoming Drupal 7 release, so more by luck than judgment our common topic is a pretty hot one.
Of course there’s microslots and the Pitch too—contact me if you want to volunteer for the sixty-second open-mic Pitch, as we’ve still got some spare slots—and we’ve got sponsorship to make sure the whole evening is not just free as in beer, but free as in… other beverages that are available. The Guardian Open Platform are sponsoring drinks again, and Apress have promised us some books for the book raffle. Torchbox is as usual very kindly sponsoring my time, venue costs and infrastructure for the night. Thanks to all our sponsors for their generosity.
Almost everything is in place, which means I might get away with a few days off before the night, but I promise to turn up on the 25th fit and rested. Assuming I’m not still stranded in Birmingham New Street. But then how likely is that, really?
Yet more sponsors: Apress and Friends of ED confirm for OGN14 and 15
Following last week’s great news from the Guardian Open Platform about sponsoring the two remaining Oxford Geek Nights, there’s more great news for the Oxford Geek community, as Apress and Friends of ED have also agreed to sponsor OGN14 and OGN15 with books a-plenty.
We try to always have a book raffle at the end of each Oxford Geek Night, where anyone who’s stuck a business card in our magic business-card box gets a chance to win one of several books donated by a generous sponsor. So thanks for Apress for stepping up to the crease and fielding a whole over of books in our direction for OGN14: we’re guaranteed a great selection of books for local geeks, and another great reason for coming along to OGN14. How can you not?
Yet more sponsors: Apress and Friends of ED confirm for OGN14 and 15
Following last week’s great news from the Guardian Open Platform about sponsoring the two remaining Oxford Geek Nights, there’s more great news for the Oxford Geek community, as Apress and Friends of ED have also agreed to sponsor OGN14 and OGN15 with books a-plenty.
We try to always have a book raffle at the end of each Oxford Geek Night, where anyone who’s stuck a business card in our magic business-card box gets a chance to win one of several books donated by a generous sponsor. So thanks for Apress for stepping up to the crease and fielding a whole over of books in our direction for OGN14: we’re guaranteed a great selection of books for local geeks, and another great reason for coming along to OGN14. How can you not?
Microslots confirmed for OGN14
Never let it be said we don’t listen. You said you wanted OGNs to start half an hour earlier; they now start half an hour earlier. And now you said you wanted more time to chat at OGNs. Lo! and behold: we’ve lined up only four microslots for Oxford Geek Night 14, to give you more time to say hi to everyone else.
In fact, after I came back from conference and waded through my emails (sorry for anyone who had to wait forever for a response) I realised that we’d ended up having a surplus of microslots. But I’ve been mean; I’ve been cruel; I’ve been sending a lot of slightly frantic emails. And the end result is that we’ve probably got a couple of potential microslots already lined up for OGN15 in November anyway. See? Nothing gets wasted at an OGN, especially not good, locally grown ideas and talent. The upshot of all of this is that both keynotes and microslots are confirmed for OGN14.
Speaking of local talent, we’ve still got spaces on The Pitch, which is our sixty-second open-mic session. You can say whatever you like for a full minute: introduce yourself or your company; advertise a vacancy, product or service; discuss a neat idea you had; announce a conference or local meet-up: anything, really. If you’re interested email me at jpstacey.info or find @jpstacey on Twitter.
Otherwise: stick OGN14 in your diary for Wednesday 23 September. That’s in just over two weeks’ time! Turn up, kick back with a beer, and get ready for some extra full-on chatting. Grr!
Microslots confirmed for OGN14
Never let it be said we don’t listen. You said you wanted OGNs to start half an hour earlier; they now start half an hour earlier. And now you said you wanted more time to chat at OGNs. Lo! and behold: we’ve lined up only four microslots for Oxford Geek Night 14, to give you more time to say hi to everyone else.
In fact, after I came back from conference and waded through my emails (sorry for anyone who had to wait forever for a response) I realised that we’d ended up having a surplus of microslots. But I’ve been mean; I’ve been cruel; I’ve been sending a lot of slightly frantic emails. And the end result is that we’ve probably got a couple of potential microslots already lined up for OGN15 in November anyway. See? Nothing gets wasted at an OGN, especially not good, locally grown ideas and talent. The upshot of all of this is that both keynotes and microslots are confirmed for OGN14.
Speaking of local talent, we’ve still got spaces on The Pitch, which is our sixty-second open-mic session. You can say whatever you like for a full minute: introduce yourself or your company; advertise a vacancy, product or service; discuss a neat idea you had; announce a conference or local meet-up: anything, really. If you’re interested email me at jpstacey.info or find @jpstacey on Twitter.
Otherwise: stick OGN14 in your diary for Wednesday 23 September. That’s in just over two weeks’ time! Turn up, kick back with a beer, and get ready for some extra full-on chatting. Grr!
Slightly less live from DrupalCon Paris
DrupalCon Paris has begun in earnest, with Dries’ state of Drupal talk this morning followed by a lot about Drupal 7. As I’ve not been closely involved in D7 it’s been a real eye-opener. From our clients’ perspectives, the most important parts—D7UX and IA changes—are still not settled, but as a developer I’m excited by so much of what’s been updated or improved (or, in some cases, removed entirely). Also interesting was Dries’ emphasis on “production-ready” being some time after D7’s release: it’s a very pragmatic viewpoint, to accept that the release of a new full version core is not what makes Drupal truly ready for big websites.
Much of the changes do actually impact on clients: they help to bring in things like content delivery networks (e.g. Amazon S3) more easily, and improve permissions systems to the point where there’s less custom work required to get things to do what you want to do. In short, now that webchick’s talk has convinced me that D7’s going to be pretty exciting, it’s time for us at Torchbox to convince our clients. Or at any rate get ourselves more familiar with D7, to try to ensure smoother transitions of our development teams to the new ways of working.
I’ve been trying to keep up the live blogging of the event, although webchick’s lightning-fast delivery nearly killed me. Props to Baris Wanschers for also live-blogging and hopefully filling in the gaps I’ve left.
Last night we all went to the Rue de Cannettes for various food and drink: crêpes and cider, beer, wine. There’s photos on the Flickr DrupalCon pool among other places. Tonight is the Drupal UK meetup at the Le Financier pub (and then moving elsewhere, if I have anything to do with it.)
I’m also hoping to help out with the Saturday code sprint. Tuesday’s sprint faltered a bit at the start (although it was fun when we had some raw issue numbers to work on and it all started moving) so I hope to help out in making Saturday’s a bit smoother. The starting point could be Dries’ “ten carefully crafted exceptions” so as soon as Bryan sticks the photo of that particular slide up then I’ll make a start on that.
All in all, I’m having great fun. It only takes a few dozen developers to reach critical mass on enjoying yourself within the context of a project: Drupal has 800+ enthusiastic attendees at this conference, and you can feel the energy in the air. Or maybe that’s the smell from the university kitchens…. Anyone want the rest of my boiled courgettes? I was thinking of becoming a freegan anyway.
Slightly less live from DrupalCon Paris
DrupalCon Paris has begun in earnest, with Dries’ state of Drupal talk this morning followed by a lot about Drupal 7. As I’ve not been closely involved in D7 it’s been a real eye-opener. From our clients’ perspectives, the most important parts—D7UX and IA changes—are still not settled, but as a developer I’m excited by so much of what’s been updated or improved (or, in some cases, removed entirely). Also interesting was Dries’ emphasis on “production-ready” being some time after D7’s release: it’s a very pragmatic viewpoint, to accept that the release of a new full version core is not what makes Drupal truly ready for big websites.
Much of the changes do actually impact on clients: they help to bring in things like content delivery networks (e.g. Amazon S3) more easily, and improve permissions systems to the point where there’s less custom work required to get things to do what you want to do. In short, now that webchick’s talk has convinced me that D7’s going to be pretty exciting, it’s time for us at Torchbox to convince our clients. Or at any rate get ourselves more familiar with D7, to try to ensure smoother transitions of our development teams to the new ways of working.
I’ve been trying to keep up the live blogging of the event, although webchick’s lightning-fast delivery nearly killed me. Props to Baris Wanschers for also live-blogging and hopefully filling in the gaps I’ve left.
Last night we all went to the Rue de Cannettes for various food and drink: crêpes and cider, beer, wine. There’s photos on the Flickr DrupalCon pool among other places. Tonight is the Drupal UK meetup at the Le Financier pub (and then moving elsewhere, if I have anything to do with it.)
I’m also hoping to help out with the Saturday code sprint. Tuesday’s sprint faltered a bit at the start (although it was fun when we had some raw issue numbers to work on and it all started moving) so I hope to help out in making Saturday’s a bit smoother. The starting point could be Dries’ “ten carefully crafted exceptions” so as soon as Bryan sticks the photo of that particular slide up then I’ll make a start on that.
All in all, I’m having great fun. It only takes a few dozen developers to reach critical mass on enjoying yourself within the context of a project: Drupal has 800+ enthusiastic attendees at this conference, and you can feel the energy in the air. Or maybe that’s the smell from the university kitchens…. Anyone want the rest of my boiled courgettes? I was thinking of becoming a freegan anyway.
Successful OGN 13: free drinks, good speakers, hilarious pratfall
I’ve finally recovered from this week’s Oxford Geek Night 13. As usual, it seems like everyone had a great time; as usual, I was running round too much to notice. Free drinks from the Guardian Open Platform almost certainly helped.
As usual the talks were a really high standard, with great keynote talks from Andrew Walkingshaw and Bruce Lawson. And while the previous midsummer OGN was pretty quiet, this time the Jericho was practically heaving. The crowds came in quite handy in the end, as only a handful of people noticed when the beercrate step onto the stage disappeared from under my feet as I was climbing up it, and I landed in a clumsy heap back on the pub floor. That Fentiman’s ginger beer is powerful stuff.
Anyway, in a fit of organizing I’ve also booked the next two OGNs for Wednesday 23 September (OGN14) and Wednesday 25 November (OGN15). Anyone wanting to do a 5-minute microslot talk at either of these should submit the details as early as possible. Sixty-second open-mic Pitches can be communicated via any medium: comments here, separate emails or messages on Twitter (@jpstacey).
(Thanks again to all the sponsors: Torchbox, Guardian Open Platform, Friends of Ed and Moo.)
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