Tag Archives: oggcamp

26 Jul
2011

Speaking at OggCamp

I’m delighted to announce that I’ll be speaking at OggCamp this year. This is an event that I’ve attended both previous years, and one that I always seem to get a lot out of. It’s an open source, anything goes, unconference kind of event. Except that this year there is also a scheduled track of talks alongside the usual unconference content.

I love oggcamp for the sheer randomness of what I learn there. I’ve variously seen talks on home automation, mapping, operating systems, politics … the list is pretty long. This year, it’s in Surrey, on the same weekend as the final deadlines for my book so I figured I’d have to give it a miss. But when I got an invite to speak on the scheduled track, I realised this was the omen I needed, and accepted at once!

I’ll be giving a talk entitled “Open Source Your Career” – a talk which brings up an aspect of open source that we often don’t discuss; the personal rewards that an individual can gain from being involved in open source. If you thought it was all about altruism, think again. I’ll be bringing anecdotes, from my own career and others’, about how the best way to fast-track your professional growth. See you in Surrey :)

06 May
2010

Thoughts on OggCamp in Liverpool

Last weekend I went to Liverpool (my first visit there!) to attend OggCamp for the second year in a row. This isn’t a part of the software community I normally interact with, but I accidentally went to a LUGRadio event once a couple of years ago and have been hooked ever since!! OggCamp went to 2 days for the first time this year and was a triumph of organisation, with a great venue and a wonderful feel to the whole event. I was particularly impressed (as an event organiser myself) that for an event with no registration, they had the right number of chairs, the venue was the right size, but in fact they didn’t have that information so a very well done to whoever made that call :)

I spoke again this year, it seemed to me like since there was voting on the talks, if my talk wouldn’t be a good fit then I wouldn’t get a slot! So I did put in a talk about source control; a topic that I’ll be speaking on in a couple of weeks at TEK-X in Chicago and one that I still feel a little bit wobbly about. Taking the main stage to give a hastily-reduced version of the talk to such a well qualified audience and coming off the stage to feel like it went OK was an excellent preparation for my next speaking event and I got chatting to all sorts of people while I was there. I’m not really a linux nut but I do have ubuntu or kubuntu installed on everything, and it was great to hear a bit more about so many aspects of technology that I use but don’t know much about.

The event ended in the traditional live podcast with all the presenters of Linux Outlaws and the Ubuntu UK Podcast all on stage at once. This is always good fun and there were some laughs from the crowd as always.

OggCamp Live Podcast

All in all, a great event, and I’m very much looking forward to next year’s!