March 14, 2008
guadec
2 Comments
After my proposal to guadec-list got a decent response, I think it’s fair to say that we’re good to go for a GUADEC table quiz!
The table quiz will be one of the social events during GUADEC, I’ll be recruiting people to help with questions, corrections and livening up things. The details, obviously, all need to be worked out.
For those of you from Ireland and the UK, you probably already know what a table quiz is (also known coincidentally as a pub quiz - probably because of the participation of the public). For the rest of you, here’s the skinny.
People organise themselves into teams of 5 or 6 people, who then give themselves a team name to go with their table number. The quiz is organised in rounds of 10 questions, and I think we’ll run 5 or 6 rounds. Between rounds, fun and frolics can be expected with spot prizes, and fun will be had by all. Or else.
March 12, 2008
General, freesoftware, gnome, guadec
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February 28, 2008
gnome, guadec
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To the surprise of everyone involved in the GNOME project, GUADEC 2008 has been announced, and will be held in AnkaraIstanbul (just kidding).
OK - so this isn’t a surprise to anyone. GUADEC this year will be great, I’m sure, and we’ll all have our fill of Turkish Delight this summer. I for one am looking forward to it.
Some of the things I’m most looking forward to are the keynotes which I have been organising this year. For the moment, we have decided to limit the number of keynotes to 3 invitees - we will add one or two community keynotes, based on what happens in the project between now and the end of March, these will likely be papers submitted through the Call for Papers which will be “promoted” to keynotes by the program committee.
This years keynotes are a varied bunch, and I’m very happy with them.
Leisa Reichelt is a renowned user interface designer whose name is pronounced as “Lisa”, and who comes highly recommended. Some of her past presentations are available online, including this presentation which she gave at the IA Summit 2007, or this one from BarCamp London, or this one from te Future of Web Apps talking about “ambient intimacy, the idea that what we really get from social networks is the impression that we’re close to friends & family whenever we want to be, regardless of distance & time constraints.
Eric Sink is the author of a blog I’ve been reading for a long time - particularly for his articles on “business for geeks”, which talks about stuff as varied as accounting, marketing, sales, fixing prices, … It’s a lot like Joel Spolsky’s blog without the overwhelming sense of self-importance. He also happens to be a founder of AbiSource, the company which funded and wrote the initial versions of AbiWord, before going out of business. He’s going to give a presentation on the business of software, with particular emphasis on free software, and the challenges of finding a business model that will allow people to make money on free software.
Matt Webb, co-author of “Mind Hacks” and consultant in product design and R&D with Schultze & Webb has been described to me as “inspiring and devastatingly smart and just wonderful” - that’s a lot to live up to. He’s promised to speak on interaction design, the future of technology and software, and generally to be entertaining.
So here’s looking forward to seeing you all on the banks of the Bosphorus from the 7th to the 12th of July!
February 4, 2008
freesoftware, gnome, guadec, marketing
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I can confirm two more keynotes for GUADEC! Yay!
Eric Sink is a co-founder of AbiSource, and author of an informative and influential blog. In particular, Eric has written some series’ of articles which might be considered essential reading for those interested in the business of software development: Marketing for Geeks and the Business of Software. Eric has eschewed the software megapoles of San Francisco and Boston to start his latest company SourceGear in Champaign, Illinois.
Leisa Reichelt is a User Experience Consultant, based in London UK, but recently of Sydney, Australia. Most of the work she does is in interactive media (web, iTV, mobile and the like) and she uses a mixture of User Research Techniques, Information Architecture, Interaction Design, and Usability skills mixed up with a background of Project Management, Producing, and Account Management to help define the requirements for a project, understand (and often define) the content and functionality involved, and design a structure (or architecture) and interface.
Leisa has been doing this kind of work for about ten years, under various guises, including project management, account management, web producing, information architecting, user experience designing, interaction designing, digital strategising and generally evangelising all the things she thinks are good about the internet and networked technology in general. She’s recently gone completely mad^Wfreelance.
These come after the confirmation of Matt Webb, co-author of Mind Hacks, as well as being a design consultant, who has already confirmed his attendance.
There is a fourth keynote which is currently very likely, but not yet confirmed, so I’ll keep mum on that person for the moment, except to say that of the 4, it’s the one I’m the most excited about.
November 29, 2007
General, freesoftware, guadec
13 Comments
I’m making up an aspirational list of people I would like to invite to keynote at GUADEC, and I’m interested in hearing about past experiences.
Who is the best speaker you have ever seen at a technical conference (not necessarily a technical presentation, mind), and what was the subject?
Answers in comments please, the winner gets a big sloppy kiss next GUADEC from someone of my choosing. Maybe Aq.
October 9, 2006
gnome, guadec
2 Comments
Back in June, Sun gave us two Ultra 20s to give to deserving GNOME hackers and announced the donation at GUADEC. Finally, we can reveal the recipients:
+= 
+=
We tried to think of two more deserving recipients, really we did.
September 18, 2006
guadec
2 Comments
If Lyon had been chosen rather than sunny Birmingham for GUADEC 2007, we could have had a conference reception here.
I don’t want to make people jealous or anything, just saying…
July 10, 2006
guadec
2 Comments
Davyd: I wasn’t coerced - Jono was doing such a crap job on it that I just had to save him from himself. My pride depended on the pig under my arm looking almost realistic, and not being a floating head.
July 6, 2006
gnome, guadec, marketing
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I finally got around to writing up my notes from the marketing BOF during GUADEC - they’re pretty scattered, and not an exact transcription of my notes. I started off with a from-memory outline of the main things we talked about, loosely organised, and then fleshed bits out from my notes when they needed it.
I would greatly appreciate feedback on this, as well as volunteers for some of the tasks suggested in there (such as setting up a CRM for contact management, and teaching enough people how to use it that it reaches critical mass - bonus points if it integrates with Evo and Thunderbird).
On a related note, there are a few biggish conferences coming up in the US in coming months where a GNOME presence is either confirmed or desirable - Ohio Linuxfest, SIGGRAPH, LinuxWorld San Francisco and OSCon. For the moment, we don’t have volunteers to organise a stand for Ohio, SF or Portland, and we need volunteers for SIGGRAPH (particularly if you’re a talented GIMP artist who can do a snazzy 15 minute demo). So come on down, GNOME marketing needs you.
Update: Ohio Linuxfest is taken care of thanks to Patrick Wagstrom, our man in Columbus (Patrick, why aren’t you on the GNOME map yet?).
July 6, 2006
guadec
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So - back to normal life after a week at GUADEC where I was the most disconnected person there. (Anyone who would like to offer me a laptop is welcome)
I spent more time outside talk sessions than I did inside them, but I still managed to see some awesome talks.
Simon Phipps from Sun Microsystems gave a nice session which tries to answer the often asked question, “why do companies spend money on free software and then give the results away?” (although he would probably have said open source). Almost the same presentation got some pretty spun press coverage earlier in the week. I guess we’re less radical in the GNOME world - the core message was “everyone wins by co-operating, but co-operation only happens when the individual’s self-interest aligns with that of others”. Or something along those lines.
Kathy Sierra got a lot of response already - suffice it to say that I really enjoyed her talk.
Luis Villa brought a tear to my eye (perhaps it was the fatigue) during his closing presentation.
jim Gettys’ talk on OLPC was eye-opening, if only because of the size of the laptops these guys are making. Overall, the talk was a little too technical for me, and I would have preferred to hear more about the “why” - how does the project plan to change the world? What will the kids do with their laptops?
The talk bu Luis Angel from Extremadura and GNOME-Hispano and Antonio José Sáenz from Andalucia was eye-opening both because of the sheer scale, and because of the thought that has been put into it. Both speakers insisted - computers in schools are a tool, not a goal. GNOME enables learning. But we have lessons to learn about remote deployment and management - our current infrastructure doesn’t scale. We need to start spreading the word about how Andalucia are handling their 200,000 computers (and soon to be 800,000).
The lightning talks were great, and came off surprisingly smoothly. I wish I’d noticed that Avid and Pitivi were back to back, but I am really happy to have seen the all-jumping, all-juggling Chronojump presentation, and Stuart Langridge’s surprising Jackfield talk (download and use 8% of all Mac Dashboard widgets as they are on your GNOME desktop!). The Elisa media center was very impressive too.
I also got to see Federico talking about the “measure, change, remeasure” mantra of performance hacking, and I thought it was an interesting trick to apply the same mantra to 10×10 - growing the user base as a performance hack.
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