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. FoodDrink 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