Over the past month Ian Cooper, Alan Dean, Sebastian Lambla, Michelle Flynn and I have been discussing the next Alt.Net.UK conference. We feel its time for another conference and this year we are doing it slightly differently.

The plan is:

Friday 31 July Evening 6pm-9pm: Alt.Net Beers: Yes we are integrating Seb's alt.net event to warm you up with a chance to relax with like-minded individuals @ 82 Dean Street, London, W1D 3HA, United Kingdom (Tequila)

Saturday 1 August Day 9am-5pm: Open Space Coding: Alan Dean's Open Space Coding Day event joins our weekend. the emphasis is on writing code over jawing @ 36 Southwark Bridge Road, London, SE1 9EU, United Kingdom (Conchango)

Sunday 2 August Day 9am-5pm: AltNetConf: Open Space discussion about the topics that have grabbed you today. Be prepare to be surprised @ 36 Southwark Bridge Road, London, SE1 9EU, United Kingdom (Conchango)

REGISTRATION: Opens 13:00 on Tuesday 12th May – Visit www.altnetuk.com for more information.  You don’t need to attend all three events but if you can – that is great! Simply let us know which ones you can\can’t attend so we can plan numbers accordingly.

REGISTRATION UPDATE: As you may have noticed, registration is not open :(  Don’t worry – instead it opens 13:00 on Friday 15th May (Tomorrow!).

A huge thank you to our hosts, sponsors and supporters who have made this possible. Times are hard but they are still willing to help which is great!! Please go check out what they do and the services they offer.

Our Hosts

Our Sponsors

Our Supporters

Any questions, please let one of us know!

Labels: Alt.net, alt.net.uk, Community

Last week Richard Fennell sent through details about an Alt.Net Open Space Conference he has helped organise in Bradford on 17th/18th April 2009.

The event will be hosted by Black Marble at their office in Bradford, West Yorkshire, and there will be space for 50 attendees. The format will be the same as previous UK Alt.net conferences.

• A planning session on Friday the 17th April from 7pm to 8:30pm, followed by a trip to a bar to socialise
• The open spaces sessions from 9am to 4:30pm on Saturday 18th April.

Registration opens at noon today so if this is something you are interested in find out more at http://www.altdotnetuknorth.info

Labels: Alt.net, alt.net.uk

This weekend was the Alt.Net.UK conference. Personally, I had a great time, met some great people and had some great conversations.  However, one thing which surprised me was the level of automation and testing topics. While I proposed a few sessions on testing (as I would), other people raised great discussions around this area.  To my surprise, they wasn't just TDD\BDD but focused more on Acceptance Testing and how we can improve the quality of software. This is something I wasn't expecting and I think its a sign of things to come with developers and testers working as a single unit.

The discussions has definitely got me thinking, and hopefully others who attended.  There are clear issues within software development which are causing pain, the question is - how do we solve these problems?

Thank you to everyone who attended, without you the conference wouldn't have worked, and also our great sponsors. While, I felt it was a successful conference, there is still room for improvements which we will take into account next time.

If you want to know more about Alt.Net and some of the topics, a good starting point is the Foundations of Programming e-book.

Labels: Alt.net, alt.net.uk

We have just opened registration for the Alt.Net.UK Summer Conference. To register visit http://altdotnet.org/events/5 . Once the registration is full, you will be able to join the waiting list incase of cancellations.

If you have any problems or questions, please let me know - either leave a comment or email me at Blog {at} Ben Hall . me . uk

The plan is host the event at Conway Hall in London and our thinking is to follow the same sort of schedule as we did in February:
- Evening planning session on Friday 12th September, following by a trip to a bar to socialise.
- The Open Spaces sessions all day on Saturday 13th September

For more information take a look at my previous announcement and the Alt.Net.UK website.  Details regarding hotels and bars will be made available at a later point.

What is the conference format?

The conference will be based on the open spaces format.

Whoever shows up is the right group. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have. Whenever it starts is the right time. When it's over, it's over.  An Open Space conference's agenda is decided upon by the conference participants during the opening of the event.

What is Alt.Net?

Various blog posts have defined Alt.Net.  Term originally coined by David Laribee on his blog.

Who are the organisers?

Ian Cooper, Alan Dean and Ben Hall.  Conchango and Red Gate are also providing support.  

Labels: Alt.net, alt.net.uk

We are pleased to announce that the Alt.Net UK Conference will be returning in September, and that there will be room for more attendees this time!

The plan is host the event at Conway Hall in London [1] and our thinking is to follow the same sort of schedule as we did in February:
- Evening planning session on Friday 12th September, following by a trip to a bar to socialise.
- The Open Spaces sessions all day on Saturday 13th September

This time we are thinking of starting off Saturday with a Park Bench to get the juices flowing.

We are very open to listening to feedback from the community if you think that there are ways that we can improve on the conference experience.

We would especially like to have more testers, technical authors and usability folk attend to foster cross-pollination of ideas.

User registration will start from Friday 11th July at 07:00 UK time [2] so the early birds will get the worm!

The following social hubs have also been set up: Upcoming [3], Facebook [4], FriendFeed [5] and LinkedIn. Don't forget that you can subscribe to the AltNetUk News River [6].

Finally, we are currently looking for sponsorship, so if you know of an organisation that would be interested to be associated with the conference in return for a little lucre, we would love to hear from you / them! (The conference is non-profit)

Conchango and RedGate have generously agreed to be launch sponsors - but more is needed, especially as we have to pay for Conway Hall this time.

[1] http://www.conwayhall.org.uk/

[2] http://altdotnet.org/events/5

[3] http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/867921/

[4] http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=31833353320

[5] http://friendfeed.com/rooms/altnetuk-conference

[6] http://newsriver.altnetuk.com/

Regards,
Ian Cooper, Ben Hall and Alan Dean

Labels: Alt.net, alt.net.uk

Labels: Alt.net, alt.net.uk

SerialSeb, one of the attendees at Alt.Net.UK conference earlier in the year, is arranging a few drinks in a London bar (to be announced via upcoming link) as a chance to catch up, meet and have an informal chat (no sessions or anything like that) with people who are interested in the alt.net ideas.  Should be a great way to unwind after a hard days work.

More information on his post - http://serialseb.blogspot.com/2008/04/announcing-altnet-london-beers-event.html

I'm planning to attend and it would be a great chance to catch up with everyone again.  I look forward to seeing you there.

Labels: Alt.net, alt.net.uk

Ayende (creator of Rhino Mocks) is coming to London for a few days and Howard van Rooijen has organised a geek dinner.

Details on his Ayende's blog:

Geek Dinner at London, Tuesday, 19th Feb, 19:00

Sadly, I don't think I will be able to attend but if your in the area - pop in have and have a chat.

Labels: alt.net.uk

This weekend was the Alt.Net.UK conference in London and I'm really pleased to say that it was a huge success.  A huge thank you to everyone who attended, I think the official count was 53, as it was you guys who made it the success it was.  Another huge thank you goes to Michelle, Sam and Danni from Conchango who was on hand throughout the day providing food, drinks and generally being great!  Another huge thank you to Red Gate who put money behind the bar on the Friday night and providing three licenses for the .Net Developer Bundle, CodeBetter for sponsorship and finally TypeMock and Roy Osherove who provided three licenses for Typemock Isolator Enterprise Edition.

On the Friday, the evening started with a quick welcome and everyone introducing themselves to the group, it was great to see such a wide variety of backgrounds and technology sectors.  After everyone had been introduced, people suggested sessions which they would either like to attend or would like to speak about.  Most of the sessions where based around MVC, Rest, TDD, ORM, DSL so had a good mix for everyone to get stuck into. In total I think we had about 80 sessions suggested with some topics which I really wasn't expecting, but interesting non the less. All of the sessions where put on post-it notes, stuck onto a whitewall and generally put into loose categories.

Photo by Mike Hadlow - http://mikehadlow.blogspot.com/2008/02/altnet-uk.html

After this, we went to the bar.  This was a great chance to unwind and get to know everyone in an informal way.  There was a great atmosphere, the tab lasted a while and everyone appeared to be really enjoying themselves and have some great conversions over a couple of beers.  I had some interesting chats with Red Gate users, what they like and areas we could improve. A very good night indeed.

Saturday was the main day of the conference. I had a little trouble getting started due to one to many beers the night before (Will I ever learn?), but all of the sessions where allocated rooms and time slots, a quick cup of tea and we broke off into sessions.  The conversation quickly got started and everyone was sharing their views on topics such as REST vs SOAP, IoC, TDD, Dynamic Languages and coding standards. Though out the day there was an amazing buzz, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves while in the breaks I had a good chat with various people around the place on some really interesting topics. From the people I spoke to, everyone said they had a great day and were really pleased that they had the chance to attend.  Once it was over, we went to another bar to continue the conversation.

The conference will never be a replacement for the more traditional events such as DDD, but it's great to have a chance to sit down with like mined people, have a few beers and talk about what's important to you and just see what everyone else is doing.  I had an amazing weekend, really enjoyed meeting everyone and I'm really happy to have been a part of it.

As for when the next one is, well you will just have to subscribe to my RSS to find out...

News River - http://newsriver.altnetuk.com/

Google Group - http://groups.google.com/group/altnetuk-discuss?hl=en

Conference Wiki - http://www.altnetpedia.com/London%20Alt.Net.UK%202nd%20Feb%202008.ashx

Labels: Alt.net, alt.net.uk

The conference is almost upon us and we just wanted to post some more information about what's going to happen.

Friday

1) Topic / Agenda Discussion on Friday 1st Feb between 18:00-19:30 @ Conchango, 36 Southwark Bridge Road, London, SE1 9EU
2) Drinks at Bankside Restaurant & Bar on Friday 1st Feb 19:30-23:00 @ 32 Southwark Bridge Rd, London, SE1 9EU

Saturday
3) Alt.Net.UK Conference Saturday 2nd Feb 09:30-17:30 @ Conchango, 36 Southwark Bridge Road, London, SE1 9EU

The plan is to host an open discussion on the topics / agenda for Saturday at the Conchango offices prior to drinks (don't worry, it's a short walk to the bar).  The aim is to discuss all of the topics which
people want to discuss and talk about.  Afterwards, we will go over to the bar and have a few drinks and some food.  This will be a great opporunity to meet each other and network before the Saturday section.

On the Friday, please aim to be at the Conchango offices for 6.00pm, we would like as many attendees as possible to participate in the Friday discussion because there will only be about 30 minutes for any
rework of the options on Saturday. If you can't make it for 6.00, feel free to still come along at any point during the evening - even if its only to the bar or just the discussion....

On Saturday, doors open at the Conchango offices at 9.00.  At 9.30, we will have a vote of the attendees to determine what topics & speakers are accepted.  At this point, we can get the conversation started and start the sessions. Food\Drink will be provided throughout the day on
the Saturday.  The plan is to finish around 5.30 on the Saturday.

One of the main questions we have been asked is - How will the session submission and voting work? Essentially an open space conference, which this is based on, has two parts
- People propose sessions
- People sign up for sessions
People who propose sessions are responsible for coordinating them.
The type of session can vary. It might be a passive learning presentation (a la Scott Gu on MVC) but it might also be a birds-of-a-feather style discussion. The style is open to the proposer of the session, and might change during the session if the participants bring with them the tools or material to switch. Open Spaces is best when it is interactive not passive.
It would be ideal if everyone could bring something they want to talk about. That does not mean preparing, but just a question. An example session might be this:

Session: Is BDD just a range of practices for TDD.
In this session we ask is BDD a new paradigm or a set of TDD practices. Why do practitioners feel it improves on TDD and what do its detractors feel its dangers are. Where is my road to damascus moment for BDD. I don't practice BDD, so I would love to have a BDD practitioners attend to tell me what I am missing. If there are no BDD practitioners why don't a few of us give it a try and see what we can learn.

Now, as proposer I may come prepared for the second eventuality and have done enough BDD reading that I could help us try it out.  If you wanted to attend this session, you would simply put your name against it on the board and attend at it's allotted time.
Bring your laptops if you have them, you may want to write code. We'll have wireless on the day, and there will be a wiki available to write up and notes/information about the session for everyones benefit. We also have setup newsriver (http://newsriver.altnetuk.com/). Anything tagged with AltNetUK should appear on this page. I'll put up more information about this on the
site.

Finally, thank you to all of you who have registered and our Sponsors - Conchango, Red Gate and Code Better.  We are really looking forward to seeing you next weekend.  We do have one request, if you can no longer attend then please send us a quick email to let us know, just so we can plan numbers and open the space up to someone else.

Regards
Alt.Net.Uk organisers

Labels: Alt.net, alt.net.uk

The Alt.Net.UK registration has opened (well, reopened).  This is the second and final batch of registrations.

To register and for more information visit:

http://www.altnetuk.com

UPDATE: Blog server went down, looks to be back now. Update just to ensure it gets reposted incase anyone missed it.

Labels: Alt.net, alt.net.uk

The moment you have all been waiting for I'm sure.  The Alt.Net.UK registration has opened.  We have limited this first batch of registrations, next batch will open very shortly.

To register visit:

http://www.altnetuk.com

Labels: Alt.net, alt.net.uk

Just a quick announcement that the registration for Alt.Net.UK will open on January 2nd. We are doing the registrations in two batches, we will announce when the 2nd round of registration opens at a later date.

Ian has posted more information - Registration for altnetconf opens January 2nd

Keep an eye on the blogs/site...

Labels: Alt.net, alt.net.uk

I'm really pleased to announce that there is going to be an Alt.Net conference in the UK - called Alt.Net.UK!  For those of you who haven't heard of Alt.Net, read David Laribee's post to better understand the term - What's ALT.NET

The conference will be held on Friday 1st and Saturday 2nd February 2008 at the Conchango offices in London and is being organised by Ian Cooper, Alan Dean, Robert Grigg (Conchango), Michelle Flynn (Conchango) and myself!

As for the agenda, well that is up to the people who attend.  We will be following an open spaces format, similar to the Austin Texas conference earlier in the year, where the agenda is decided by the conference participants.  Anyone can lead sessions on particular topics of interest, participate as an attendee or just hang around and chat with interesting people.

Please note that registration is not open yet!  I will blog more when we have information on this, hopefully it will open shortly. I can say that the conference will be free of charge.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us. I'm really looking forward to this, should be a great event!

Keep an eye on the conference site and the blogs for more information - www.AltNetUK.com

Thank you to our sponsors:

Labels: Alt.net, alt.net.uk