Okay, it's been a while since I wrote in this, but here goes.
London.pm had a Tech Meet, which I organised this time round. It was
all lightning talks, and they're online here
In case you don't know, organising tech meets is hard. The process
as far as I can see involves
- Bullying people into speaking while they're drunk.
- Bullying places into giving you a venue (Thanks Profero)
- Bulling the people that said they'd speak into agreeing to speak again
when they're not drunk.
- Bullying people to give you their slides.
- Pleading for people to give you their slides.
- Begging for people to give you their slides.
- Screaming at people to give you their slides.
- Doing the thankless bit of sticking everything on a laptop and making sure it works.
- Turning up at the venue early (this is easy when you work there) and not going to the pub beforehand (which is harder)
- Panicing when half the speakers arrive late. Re-jigging the running order. Panicing a bit more.
- Introducing everyone and forgetting the running order and get confused who has and hasn't turned up. For example, I forgot the Nigel had turned up first even though I'd had a five minute conversation with him. Go figure. Stress.
- Packing up, moving the zillion chairs back to where they're meant to be.
- Going to the pub and convincing the people standing around that they want to speak at the next tech meet.
And on and on. If I ever say we're going to do an all lightning talk
tech meet ever again, just shoot me. It was great, but there's no way
that you'll ever get me chasing that many speakers again. Goodness only
knows how conference organisers do it.
So, anyone want to speak at the next London.pm tech meet? Scheduled
provisionally for the 23rd Jan 2003 (venue permitting,) lightning,
twenty and forty minute talks considered.
Damn, I'm a glutton for punishment.
*applause*
Dom2 on 2002-11-22T13:11:38
I have to say that last night was extremely well done. I'm eternally grateful to you for organising it so well. And the tool you had for doing everybody's presentations worked really well.
-Dom
