BarCamp Kick-off Time

Folks, just a quick reminder that BarCamp registration kicks off at 9:15am on Saturday morning, with the first talks starting at 10:00am (there will be a quick introduction and a little ‘game’ before that!).

As always, the ethos is of an open camp, so if you can’t make it until later, then don’t worry! We will be handing out name-tags to attendees, so if you arrive late, then grab one for yourself so that people will know who you are.

Once again, we’d like to thank all of our sponsors, without them BarCamp would not exist:

Microsoft (Thanks Clare)
Trinity Venture Capital (Thanks Brian)
Rococo and mySay (Thanks Ivan)
LeCayla Technologies (Thanks Conor)
Capulet Communications (Thanks Darren and Julie)
Blacknight (Thanks Michele)
Hosting365 (Thanks Ed)
Newbay Software (Thanks Paddy)

Forget about the presentations, the after Barcamp Drinks are at …

After much deliberation, we can now announce where the after Barcamp Drinks will be held. It will be at the Lord Edward pub in Dublin, a stone’s throw from the actual Barcamp venue.

By the magic of team working, expect a map of how to get there to appear sometime soon …

Press & Publicity

9 days to go and counting….

We’re up to 90 attendees and 19 speakers on the wiki, and with some press we hope this will grow over the next few days. As well as the ‘mainstream’ press that we are aiming to generate over the next few days, it would be great to see our bloggers publicising BarCamp as well. If you do blog, then please tag your posts with ‘BarCampDublin’.

PRESS RELEASE

Irish IT Conference turns the audience into the presenters.

The third BarCamp event to be held in Ireland once again brings a fresh twist to the usual IT gatherings. BarCamp is an event model imported from the United States with the mantra of “No spectators, only participants.”

BarCamp is an informal gathering of people from technical and business backgrounds who wish to share their knowledge and learn from others. BarCamp has a policy of encouraging active participation in all discussions, rather than speakers simply preaching to silent crowds.

Discussions on the day will include: Social media marketing, Setting up an energy efficient/carbon neutral Data Centre, Selling Web 2.0 to Irish Financial Institutions and Web Usability 101: A 30-Minute Crash Course. However the flexible BarCamp structure allows anyone to start their own discussion by adding their topic to the discussion noticeboard on the day.

Co-organiser Elly Parker stated “Events such as BarCamp encourage networking between technical and business professionals in a relaxed and casual atmosphere. It’s a fantastic opportunity to develop long-lasting relationships that can benefit you both in work and life”.

BarCamp Ireland is an all-day event being held in the Digital Exchange in Dublin on Saturday April 21st. To attend, please follow the instructions at: http://www.barcampdublin.com/attendees/

So what should you expect at BarCamp?

We’ve received a few e-mails from people asking us just what to expect from BarCamp Dublin, and it’s a hard question for us to answer… Each BarCamp is unique and themes tend to develop during the day.

What I can tell you is how the logistics are run! A few people volunteer for the tasks of doing the behind the scenes tasks; selecting a venue, date, equipment, acquiring sponsors, food & beverages. The rest of the work is done by the attendees, who offer to give talks/host sessions and make requests on other topics that they wish to hear about.

All this information is placed on a wiki, a website that can be edited by anyone, along with a list of attendees, suggestions for accommodation, ideas for post-BarCamp parties, etc… basically any useful information.

So who should attend? Anyone who is interested by the talks or speakers that have already agreed to speak. Sessions follow different formats, some people prefer to use slides or mind-maps to talk to, followed by questions and answers; while others are more interactive and encourage audience participation.

There is only one rule for the talks, this event is not about self-promotion and we would strongly discourage the use of company logos on slides.

What will I get out of it? An opportunity to network in a casual, relaxed environment; opportunity to learn new information on areas that interest you; chance to build lasting relationships with valuable industry contacts.

Finally, who better to tell you about BarCamp than previous attendees - I’ve pulled together a selection of blog posts talking about BarCamp SouthEast to give you a flavour of what happened:

BarCamp Ireland - Southeast Review -Aidanf

BarCamp Southeast Roundup - Michele

My complaint about BarCamp Waterford - Eirepreneur

Back from BarCamp South East - Adrian Smith

If you have any questions, then feel free to e-mail us at info@barcampdublin.com

Sponsor Shout-Out

We’d like to say a big thank-you to our sponsors, without them, BarCamp Dublin wouldn’t be possible.

Microsoft (Thanks Clare)
Trinity Venture Capital (Thanks Brian)
Rococo and mySay (Thanks Ivan)
LeCayla Technologies (Thanks Conor)
Capulet Communications (Thanks Darren and Julie)
Blacknight (Thanks Michele)

If you’d like to sponsor BarCamp Dublin, send an e-mail to info@barcampdublin.com.

Barcamp Dublin Presenters - Blog your talk

So far we’ve got 20 people ready to talk at Barcamp Dublin. We’ve still a few spaces left to cover last minute cancellations. If you’re interested add you name to the wiki.

Once you’ve signed up to speak please blog a quick summary of you talk. Leave a link / trackback to this post and we’ll pull them all together. Nothing fancy (here’s a sample), just a couple of lines to awaken people’s interest.

    What do YOU want from Barcamp Dublin?

    The Barcamp Dublin team have recovered from the Irish Blog Awards and have recently been spotted organising. I’ll let Elly, Joe and Eoghan post as their bits of news go public.

    If you’re reading this before the end of March , it’s very likely that you know what a BarCamp is. More likely than not, you’ve been to one already. So the question is: What do YOU want from BarCamp Dublin? In particular,

    * What do you think worked, and what didn’t, at previous BarCamps?

    * How should we reach out to people who would enjoy / contribute to BarCamp, if only they knew what it was?

    * Should we have a particular theme for the Dublin BarCamp? I’m not talking a strict topic, but something that might encourage new people to come along and contribute?

    Let us know what you think.

    BarCamp Dublin is go!

    Following the success of the first two Irish BarCamps in Cork and Waterford, we are pleased to announce that BarCamp Dublin will be held in the Digital Hub on Saturday 21st April 2007.

    BarCamp is a technology-focused, ad-hoc gathering of passionate folks who want to share, interact and spread the love around what they spend their days and nights toiling away on.

    It is an informal gathering of people from technical and business backgrounds, where information and experiences are exchanged. The event is geared towards sharing knowledge and learning from others and there is a policy of encouraging active participation in all discussions.

    BarCamp is free. However, we strongly encourage attendees to sign up so we can gauge how many will attend and plan accordingly. Signing up can be done by adding your name to the Wiki at http://barcamp.org/BarCampIreland3 or by e-mailing to info@barcampdublin.com

    More information on our sponsors will be released soon.

    The organizational team for this event is as follows:

    Elly Parker http://blog.ellybabes.com

    Joe Drumgoole http://joedrumgoole.com/blog/

    Eoghan McCabe http://www.eoghanmccabe.com/naive-by-design/

    (update) Paul Browne - FirstPartners.net/Blog

    Paul Walsh http://segala.com/blog/

    More information can be found via the BarCamp Dublin blog @ http://www.barcampdublin.com

    ——————————————————————————

    On a personal note, I’d like to thank both Tom Raftery and John Breslin. I’m in Arizona this week and have been in long meetings all day, so I missed the whole discussion and requests asking them to consider postponing BarCamp Cork and BarCamp Galway, respectively. I’m delighted to see the spirit of collaboration between the Irish bloggers!

    I have to apologise as well, we have been planning this for a few weeks now, but had decided to hold off on releasing any solid details until we had managed to confirm our venue and date. The organizing team is hoping to have a meeting next week, so hopefully we will have some more details for you then. Thanks to everyone for their help so far.