ymb posted to #BarCampHelsinki:

ymb

Anyone want to suggest a date for BarCampHelsinki2 ? Fjord have volunteered to allow use of their place again, so...

3 months, 1 week ago.

23 comments so far

  • ymb

    following advice from the BarCamp site on how to get started

    The is a location, now a date is needed.

    Communication via Jaiku seems to work pretty well (or at least it did for the first one)

    3 months, 1 week ago by ymb.

  • Tuija

    I'm sure it's very convenient to know that a venue is at hand - but perhaps another company might offer their services this time? Just a thought, so that BarCamp Helsinki doesn't too soon become "owned" by one business.

    3 months, 1 week ago by Tuija.

  • aleksip

    This topic here somehow sprouted a BarCamp discussion. I dig the idea about having an outdoor event in some exotic place like Rastila.

    3 months, 1 week ago by aleksip.

  • ymb

    From what little i followed of that discussion, looked like there was a specific topic that would benefit from some sort of event, and it is maybe too large a topic for a traditional BarCamp session.

    The way i understand BarCamp is that it is just a template to help with organising an un-conference. To mangle the quote "If you organise it, they will come"

    @Tuija - if someone else wishes to host, not a problem (but laziness is winning out here, Fjord have offered, and in the field of one, they are the clear leader). As to "owning" the event, all Fjord provided was space, power and wireless internet (the fact that their space is right in the middle of downtown Helsinki very close to the central railway station is a bonus :).

    3 months ago by ymb.

  • pr1001

    I thought Fjord was a great location but, as an out-of-towner, I wouldn't know of anywhere better. ;-)

    3 months ago by pr1001.

  • aleksip

    I think the place is no issue. Very great that there is one. Any suggestions for a date?

    3 months ago by aleksip.

  • akonan

    August?

    3 months ago by akonan.

  • ymb

    hummm, might be a bit fast :)

    that is only three months after the last one, I think Peter suggested that a 6 month gap has worked for other BarCamps (which would put it in October/November)

    but if everyone else is up for it, some day towards the end of August would work for me.

    3 months ago by ymb.

  • akonan

    Good point :)

    3 months ago by akonan.

  • pe3

    So what we discussed under @Tuija's post was an event about "tavoitteellinen verkkoläsnäolo" which translates to something like "(professional?) goal oriented net presence".

    I myself hope that we would have a healthy semi pro blogging culture/ecosystem in Finland. One of the toppics covered could be small scale publishing (both on the net and on dead trees). Personally I hope we could also bring together people interested in serious political blogging to the event.

    Other themes could be community building, lead user relations, marketing and collaborative professional productions (like this event actually!).

    I think that all these activies are linked to some common interests. For example the new Oindex-service ranking Finnish websites could be interesting for many. But there are also toppics that are interesting only for some people. And then there is this language question...

    I have an initial proposal. We could have a pre-lunch programme in Finnish focusing on small scale publishing. After lunch we could have an English programme.

    There are some people interested who don't want to participate if the event is in Finnish. I think we should be innovative in finding sollutions and not think about it as a problem. We could for example try to organize live translations during the presentations. A couple of people translating presentations to our Jaiku-channel. And someone translating the questions & answers sections. I think we can make the event fun and interesting for anyone if we share responsibility and honestly try to make it as good for everyone as possible.

    3 months ago by pe3.

  • pe3

    sorry. i mean there are some people who don't want to participate if the event is in English

    3 months ago by pe3.

  • ymb

    thanks, i had got as far as there was some issue with language (being a little too lazy to try and fully understand the whole thread, along with bits of it being in puhukieli)

    The way i see it is that the city BarCamp's are more generic, but there are other events that use the un-conference model when there is enough interest in a specific topic (or someone makes the effort and organises it).

    Sounds like you have a plan. I would humbly suggest that you could follow the BarCamp plan (e.g. find a place, pick a date...) and you could have a really good event on your hands.

    One suggestion is that you make the afternoon session optional English, i.e. if people are putting up sessions on the day (following the BarCamp model), they need to indicate starting/peferred language for their session (then the back channel/jaiku swaps language for that one)

    3 months ago by ymb.

  • Tuija

    @ymb , @aleksip , I suppose the place is no issue, really. Not many central locations w free wifi out there willing to open their doors to a bunch of bloggers, I suppose :)

    Let me just check the basic format as I haven't ever partaken a barcamp before: there are a number of people who make up an ad-hoc event schedule resulting in several small discussions, have I got it correct? Does the BarCamp format allow for some kind of end discussion for everyone together?

    Simultaneous translation sounds onerous, but if the session langages are clearly defined, as @ymb suggests above, that should help choose one's preferenses. To me, personally, it's just nerve-wrecking to listen to finns speaking english amongst themselves. But that could just be me.

    3 months ago by Tuija.

  • ymb

    The interesting thing for me is that the "un-conference" format changes on the day (BarCampHelsinki started with a list of topics, but on the day that changed as the participants wanted). The schedule and talks also altered throughout the day.

    My reading of other BarCamp's is that there is normally an "after-event" where many discussions continue.

    Just in case you have not seen these: what to Expect from a BarCamp, organising a BarCamp -this one has some good links in it, and finally The rule s of BarCamp

    Regarding the language thing, from what I saw there at BarCampHelsinki was no time that there was two Finns talking in English (if there was two (or more) Finns they used Finnish), and they very politley swapped to English if an non-Finnish speaker was present.

    3 months ago by ymb.

  • Tuija

    @ymb thanks for your patient guidance, as you see I'm quite new to this kind of informal event hosting

    3 months ago by Tuija.

  • Jere

    To mix things up further, I've been playing with the idea of BlogCamp already before the first BCHelsinki. The Finnish bloggers have regular meetings, but the community could really benefit from a more organized (sic) event. I'm thinking an event for whole of blogistan and every blogger: knitters, journos and CEOs. Not too techie, not too professionally oriented and in Finnish, maybe around August.

    So there are now I guess three kinds of related ideas for a BarCamp-like event emerging here: another "regular" Barcamp for geeks, ProWebCamp (or whatever) for (semi)professional bloggers and marketers and BlogCamp. Should we pursue these as separate events - or merge some or all?

    (And of course, there will be Konfabulaari in October.)

    3 months ago by Jere.

  • akonan

    @Jere I think the best thing for all parties would be to merge them. Then each "camp" could challenge the ideas of others. This was probably the original idea of BarCamp - to bring together lots of people with different views..

    3 months ago by akonan.

  • ymb

    @tuija no problem.

    I have two small advantages in this; native english speaker and attended one BarCamp (and have read about a number of others)

    3 months ago by ymb.

  • ymb

    i would vote for merging.

    The original plan for BarCampHelsinki was to let the sessions select language based on who was in the session, if the events are combined as @akonan suggests, then a guarantee of a minimum of single track that is ONLY in Finnish would work/help to bring people along?

    And for me, at least, the mix of backgrounds at BarCampHelsinki was one of the best things (Entrepreneurs, University, Corporate, Designers etc). This mix of backgrounds helps to prevent an "echo chamber" or "group think" effect, as well as creating the opportunity to hear a point of view that you would not normally be exposed to.

    3 months ago by ymb.

  • ymb

    anyone anymore thoughts on this?

    2 months, 1 week ago by ymb.

  • akonan

    Dates anyone? :)

    1 month ago by akonan.

  • ymb

    ok, how about Saturday 27th?

    approximatly a month from Konfabulaari and during Helsinki Design Week, and about 6 weeks away.

    3 weeks, 4 days ago by ymb.

  • ymb

    and i meant 27th September (months also help :)

    3 weeks, 4 days ago by ymb.

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