We can say once again that our last event, RealTime WebCampLjubljana, was a great success. We didn’t run out of coffee, there was enough electricity and WiFi as well as a great mix of people and the quality of talks and discussions was astonishing.
There are a few things that we did differently this time that had effect on the ‘camp feeling:
- Smaller group – instead of going with 150+ we went for 50+ crowd. More intimate and it allowed for more open discussions.
- Two tracks only – moved from 3 tracks format to 2 tracks as there was less people and we also had to optimize for the available rooms. We still managed to create a nice balance of tech vs. non-tech oriented talks.
- Slovenian language – despite protests from our friends in Croatia, we decided to go with Slovenian as a primary language this time. My current feeling is that this made it easier for everyone involved and we should consider sticking to Slovenian for smaller camps that are not intended for international audience.
- ‘Hackish venue’ – instead of going for university or conference venue, we crashed in Hekovnik this time, a new hackerspace in Ljubljana. This had a totally different feeling of more ‘ad-hoc’ and less sterile environment. It seemed like people enjoyed this more.
There is still a question – how to encourage people to prepare more sessions and how to time the event. Going for early Saturday morning as a start (8am-ish) seems to work great for now. Regarding more sessions, I’m not sure if we can expect more than 30% of attendees to run their own session, would be interested in recommendations on any literature on the topic of facilitating sessions.
Did I miss anything important that we should take into consideration for our next ‘camps?
Agreed on each and every point except Slovenian… It made it easier for Slovenians but everybody else (the lone 6 Croatas ;)) got lost in translation. Please consider English for future events. 🙂
“sticking to Slovenian for smaller camps that are not intended for international audience” is reasonable for me. If I were you I would probably do the same. However, maybe you should have a separate presentation site for that event or not allow it to translate to English and clearly state that it is an domestic event only. If international event is in place then all talks should be in English, without exceptions.
Like Ivan said, please consider all events in English meaning they will be for international audience.
Marko, RT WebCamp had clear “official language” + all the PR materials were only in Slovenian.
Jure, sure, I know, I’m not complaining nor saying anything about this one. I wouldn’t be there if I had something against that. What I’m saying is just maybe, as an idea, to have WebCamp in English as an international event and the other one you prefer to do in Slovenian would be a separate event?
although I’d prefer all events to be in english, I can understand most people are more comfortable speaking in their native language, especially if the 6 of us were the only non-local folks there 🙂
agreed on all other points, there was definitely a hackish/underground vibe and it was definitely more intimate than some other similarly themed events I attended
all in all, a straight A for everyone involved, hope to see you all at many more gettogethers like this 🙂
also, mad props for electricity / wifi availability… maybe next time I’ll charge my gear before I leave home? 😀 😀 😀