RYO AltNetConf

There's a tremendous amount of goodness (the "new" goodness?) that's circulating around the 'sphere. Martin Fowler chimed in with his take on it and I'm glad we're all generally singing from the same song sheet.

Jeremy Miller Jeffrey Palermo brought up mention of how the original Code Camp spread like wildfire as the format and idea was easy to implement. As time goes on, I think this is true for the AltNetConf idea. Jeff summed the idea of the AltNetConf best with this quote:

AltNetConf's are open spaces conferences where DotNetters get together to discuss how to build better .Net software.

Short and sweet. Just the right amount of description.

Given this the idea of new conferences springing up and spreading the new goodness is a great idea. What does it take to start up your own AltNetConf? The passion and desire to do so. So why not? There's nothing stopping you.

On the heels of the first one in Austin there are a few good ideas that you could use when you're building your own AltNetConf:

  • Keep the size manageable. I think the 100 person limit was great for the Austin one. This also helps you locate a place for it.
  • Self-organizing agenda. Rather than pre-canned agenda of topics, the first day/night of the conference is the time to collaborate and drill out what people are passionate about. What bugs people, what do they want to talk about. This is an agenda driven by both speaker and speakee (as I would consider everyone a speaker for each session, with someone keeping the conversation on topic rather than coffee-talk, much like a Scrum Master does during the daily standups)
  • Nothing but .NET. This isn't Alt.JAVA so the conversations follow building on Microsoft platforms using the most appropriate tool, technology, and technique that makes sense for the problem at hand.
  • Don't turn it into a vendor fest. While it may be Microsoft related, I think the last thing an AltNetConf needs is "Brought to you by [insert .NET vendor product here]". True, it should be free and things cost these days, but there are too many ideas that spiral out of control and become product showcases rather than guys and girls talking about software development.
  • Follow the OpenSpace approach to organization and flow. Just resonates on the ideas above.

I'm at a disadvantage as I didn't directly attend the conference in Austin so I'm looking for those that were there to maybe bring out a AltNetConf retrospec. What worked well? What didn't work. What can we do better?

So spread the news, pick a location, and start doing it. For me, I'm looking to see if we can get an AltNetConfCalgary or AltNetConfEdmonton (or AltNetConfAlberta for that matter) going so ping me if you're interested. Let's keep the momentum going!

Hopefully lessons learned and ideas here would be applied to future conferences like this (which we all hope to see soon everywhere as we don't all need to coalesce to one single place once a year).

4 Comments

  • I do believe at the Edmonton Code Camp there is some sort of altnetconf brain dump session planned. I'm working on a blog post as to what I thought about altnetconf (because you know there aren't enough of those around).

    I like the idea of an AltNetConfAlberta. I'd wager that if we did it in Banff or Jasper in the summer, we could trick some of our American comrades to coming up as well. Kyle/Justice might even come from that B-island he's hiding out on too.

  • @Tom: Yeah, that rocks. I'm all for AltConfAlberta. Banff sounds great (or Jasper, but I think there's better facilities at Banff, John B. probably knows). Not that we want a gimmick to attract people, but Banff in the spring/summer might be good as people could relax and try out some golf or something, although it's one day so who knows. We can talk more at CC.

  • I'm definitely thinking about doing one in London.

  • I don't think there is anything wrong with having non .NET people there. They bring ideas from Java and Ruby to the discussion. Most of the tools (ndepends, nspec, nunit, etc) take their roots in other languages where these same problems exist, and may have already been solved.

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