Based on the discussion in this posting the main focus of this year's DrupalCON should be coding. We want to get stuff done. We don't want to listen to presentations.
At the same time I don't think we should impose limits on what can and cannot be done. Let's try not to lock people out. If some people want to do presentations, why not? I, for one, would be happy to give people an introduction to Drupal, or to spend 15 minutes explaining the CCK. Training new Drupal users, and getting Drupal developers up to speed is important too. Given enough rooms, it shouldn't get in the way of all the hacking.
So, it looks like we need a venue with several rooms. Given enough rooms, people can schedule a room to have meetings, to talk to potential customers, to provide Drupal training, to do ad-hoc presentations (BarCamp style, no advance schedule) or whatnot without disturbing those who want to write code or fix bugs.
I'll be attending BarCamp Brussels in about 3 weeks. It's at the Résidence Palace - International Press Center in Brussels and from what I'm told, they secured 3 rooms for BarCamp. Maybe that is a potential venue? I don't know. Peter Forret managed to secure that location.
Either way, it would be nice if the location was within walking distance from EuroOSCON so people can roam around. EuroOSCON will take place in Hotel Le Plaza. The walking distance between the International Press Center and Hotel Le Plaza is about 2.5km (30 minutes) according to mappy.com. I guess that is doable.
Maybe someone can send mail to both Peter Forret and the International Press Center? Or maybe someone who actually knows Brussels (not me!), can offer advice?
Comments
fapi 2.0
i'll talk about fapi 2.0
which is something i want to spend the time coding at drupalcon =)
Getting people on the same page is very advantageous if i want to drag people in to help me =)
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The future is so Bryght, I have to wear shades.
Let me repeat myself
If there is coding, I will try hard to come. Especially if there is form API coding :)
But, no promises. None at all. To repeat myself again, busy fall ahead.
Peter Forret contact
I'll get in touch with Peter.
What I was thinking is that a bit like Vancouver, we can get people to submit posts to this group, signup enable them, and see what people are interested in. This can then be a mix of presentations or coding. A "coding" group that has lots of people sign up can split, or do a presentation and then do coding groups.
Did you get any answer?
I'm a bit confused (see Task 1). Should I find some place closer do I need to check for Hotel accommodation?
Well Any way, I've been contacting some people in Brussels who know more about conference rooms in Brussels. Didn't got any answer yet. So it would be good to know if I have to do it myself or not. I have some ideas how to get the information, let me know if it is worth putting time in or if the place is decided.
Still need venue
Getting a conference venue is key, accomodation is secondary. The latter depends on the location of the former. If the conference venue is in downtown Brussels, people will be able to book a hotel themselves. If so, accomodation becomes a no-brainer.
Ideal setup? (Urgent)
We need your input on what would be the "ideal setup" in terms of rooms?
How many rooms do we need, and how many people should fit in each of these room? Do we need several small rooms, or preferably one big room?
There are "meeting rooms" (tables and chairs) and "presentation rooms" (fixed chairs). How many do we need of each?
How many days do we want these rooms? Should DrupalCON be 1, 2, 3 or 4 days?
What would be the ideal setup/environment?
Chicken egg, lets break the egg :)
We need to know one of both:
What will people do, to find the venue that fits with that.
What is the venue, so people know if they will be coming to do stuff.
I would give it a rough shot:
* Coding (one room @ max 40 ppl, because of wifi/plugs/space)
* Presentations (one room @ max any amount)
* Talk about specific stuff (meetings) (two rooms @ 5-16 ppl each)
* Unofficial chatter, with coffee and tea (one hallway, or room or bar @ ~20-100 ppl)
I'd say, that we should cater both the sit-down-with-a-laptop-and-kill-that-bug-queue people and those that need to discuss stuff, or want to show ideas (presentations).
If above is what we need, and we have 3 days, we would need 2 or 3 rooms for 40 people, because with a bit of a schedule one room can be both presentation and meeting room, for example.
We should make it longer then two days, but no longer then 5. 1 or 2 is too short for people flying in. And 5 or more is to much for all people to schedule free, imo. Especially if you ant to add one day, or so looking around the place.
Variables that need to be set, are:
how many people can we cater.
how many people do we estimate to be present.
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How about this?
Looks like we need at least one big room for presentations, one or two meeting rooms for coding, and a place to hang out and network. Pretty much like we had in Vancouver ... except that, maybe, we should reserve one room exclusively for coding.
Difficult. If we want to
Difficult. If we want to have a more informal meeting (an idea I like a lot) we should try to get a big room where once can push the tables and chairs around as we need to. Then again, some people would prefer to have it a little bti quieter. Maybe we can have one big room and onw or two smaller ones?
This sounds like it would work...
I don't even know if we need the rooms per se.. in Vancouver people who needed a quiet spot to do hacking seemed to find places either on benches outside or on the floor next to the stairs, etc. ;)
While I would be interested
While I would be interested in spending some time coding, I can't justify travelling to Europe to do what I do just as well sitting at home. My reason for going will be all about interacting with people, which to me is going to mean presentations and working sessions where we talk, plan, strategize, etc. So I guess I'd really like kind of a mix. Make it worth my while to take time off work and travel!
(Tho this one will be easier to get me to go to since, well. I've always wanted to visit Belgium and I missed out on my last trip to Europe).
best interaction..
.. is to code together :D