be2camp brum

Be2camp in Birmingham, West Midlands

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Comment by Paul Wilkinson on August 3, 2009 at 10:40am

This is the text of an email bu Rob Annable sent to speakers about the event - reckon it's useful background for anyone attending ....

First of all I'd like to thank everyone for being so generous with their time and offering to take part in Birmingham's first be2camp event.

The list of both speakers and attendees is now more extensive than we ever imagined it would be and it's promising to be a very interesting, informative and lively afternoon.

The web site including the latest list of attendees is here:

http://be2campbrum.eventbrite.com

In the days leading up to the 12th it seemed sensible to have a brief overview of our hopes for the event and take any questions you might have. If you've attended either a previous be2camp or any other type of camp style 'unconference' then you'll know what to expect, but since you're all from such different fields i'll go over the basics.

For the sake of completeness I'll go over some of the obvious stuff too so please forgive me if none of this is new to you.

Be2camp is about the cross over between the analogue world of the built environment and the digital world of the web. We want to hear about people and projects that are using digital tools in the built environment too make their work better, smarter, faster or cooler. You don't need a world changing conclusion, all we ask is that you share your experience and help encourage others (in this traditionally quite conservative industry) to think about the creative power of digital tools such as the web. In return we need to hear from the built environment about what parts of it might benefit from being creatively plugged into the digital world.

An 'unconference' is really just an event that strives to increase the networking and presentation success through it's informality. There'll be no keynote speech and no pre-set order of presentations. Unless any of you is offended by the idea or simply has more practical constraints like time restrictions, we'd like to agree the presentation order through conversation when we first get started. However, since we have a number of attendees that won't have tried an event like this before we think it might be a good idea to bend the rules a little and put up a list of themes/topics on the web site over the next few days, so please feel free to drop me a line with a hint such as a presentation title. If we can organise the room layout in a suitable way we could consider running two streams of talks simultaneously allowing people to move between them as they see fit. Alternatively we might discover that a more face to face approach would be better for some, running like an advice surgery (Nick - would welcome your thoughts here, perhaps we do a social media surgery at the end of the day?).

As for the presentation itself we would ask that you keep it to around 15 minutes maximum to give us time to get through everyone and (for the geeks amongst you) please remember the mixed nature of the audience. It appears we've done a pretty good job of getting the web/building cross section we were hoping for and IT experience will be varied.

We'd also like to end the day with a second round of presentations following the Pecha Kucha format. I'm hoping some of you will be brave enough to try this too if you have a second, quick-fire talk you'd like to give.

So we kick off from 12pm, spend 30 minutes or so agreeing a running order while people arrive and get stuck in until around 6pm when we aim for Pecha Kucha talks followed by the pub.

Axis Design will be putting some money in the pot for sandwiches and thanks to my fellow organiser Lorna Parsons from Bryant Priest Newman will have some drinks to offer. If anyone feels compelled to assist with a little extra sponsorship then please let us know!

The only minor detail left for Lorna and I to resolve is the provision of chairs. The horse had already bolted before we discovered that there would be none available at the venue. We're currently looking into

Comment by Tim Hall on July 28, 2009 at 7:50pm

Only one day that week I could not attend and the 12th is the date.
What happened to serendipity?
I'm sure EE Paul will find a way to keep the slackers up to date with the debate.
Tim

Comment by Rob Annable on July 15, 2009 at 10:26am

We've created an page for registration for be2campbrum:

http://be2campbrum.eventbrite.com/

Comment by Lorna Parsons on July 13, 2009 at 2:31pm

So far, confirmed speakers include:
Dave Harte, Birmingham Digital (@daveharte)
Andy Hartwell, Substrakt (@andyhartwell)
David Burden, Daden (@davidburden)
Nick Booth, Podnosh (@podnosh)
Paul Wilkinson, pwcom 2.0 (@EEPaul)
Martin Brown, fairsnape (@fairsnape)
Geoff Henderson, DNA
Clare Hardwick, Family Housing Association
Usman Haque, Pachube
Brian Prangle, Open Street Map