A Year of Community Events

aizatto — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 13:37:40 +0000

366 Days

This year has been quite a year for communities. Well maybe not all communities, but at least the ones that I know off.

4 Events

What has happened (or will be happening) over the year?

So far, these have been really fun!

How so?

The gatherings provide a great opportunity to:

meet and catch up with old friends
meet new people
connect names you hear and read online, to faces in real life
see what exciting things people have been working on
play a game of 5 Card Mao
give you something to do every few months
get free tshirts
re-energize your battery

I think the last one, is probably the most important. The amount of energy at these events is intense, as everyone is participating in something. "Delegate", may be the wrong word to call the attendees. The people are more like "Participants", participating in making the event as awesome as humanely possible.

Why is there so much energy? It's because everyone, somehow gets caught in this gigantic fly wheel. Everyone is a catalyst, and you don't want it to stop as you are all having so much fun.

At the end of every event, people are happy. People are impressed. People want to take action. People want to try out new things. People want to experiment. People can't wait to see what new things these awesome people will come up with.

Hopefully this trend will continue into the next year. Because no matter how difficult life gets, it gives people something to look forward to, in the very near future.

Hope to see you all at BarCamp JB!

Photo Credits:

StartupCamp KL photo taken by Sumardi Shukor
FOSS.my audience shot taken by Eavay Javay Barnad
BarCamp KL photo Taken by Aen Tan

BarCamp Malaysia 2008

aizatto — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:47:26 +0000

A good friend of mine, Kamal Fariz is organizing BarCamp Malaysia 2008, aimed for 26th and 27th July. BarCamp is more of and adhoc conference, or as some would like to say "unconference".

The Negated Conference

What would a negated conference be exactly? Regular conferences (at least the ones Malaysians are accustomed to) tend to be very one way.

You plant your ass down.
Presenter comes up on stage.
You clap your hands in respect.
Presenter delivers the information.
You absorb information.

At no point in the conference, do the audience generally contribute back.

The goal of this (un/negated) conference is to facilitate that.

Discussions. Demos. Interaction.
Disclaimer: at least thats what it says on the wiki page

Information wants to be free.

Volunteering

Looking at their Facebook page, volunteer meetings are planned to be held every Thursday, and there was one just last night, which I happened to miss.

If you are interested, you can sign up as a Camper (Participant) at the BarCamp wiki page.

Strange Symphonies » BarCamp KL