Montreal Tech Watch

I have already posted notes, pictures and videos about the latest barcamp. Fred Ngo has a list of other posts about barcamp. I want now to finish my report and post my closing thoughts about barcamp.

After Martine Pagé’s presentation, a debate started, and it seemed a lot of women in the assistance had their own opinion on women’s position in conferences. Someone said that organizers should be hyperactive, look out for women and if necessary, broaden the topics to allow more women. I don’t necessarily agree on this. One interesting feedback was from Sylvain Carle who said there should be facilities aimed at women’s needs and parents who want to attend conferences. I think that was a great idea, although that sounds like more extra work: who wants to watch kids during a whole day? This would put extra burden on organizers who are already doing a lot of work. My closing thought on this is: barcamp is based on a wiki - so everyone can participate. The organizers don’t select registrants so it’s the community’s duty to ensure there are more diversity.

Speaking of diversity, I was “charmed” by Moonlyn’s presentation. This was a out-of-this world presentation. Or it’s me who is out of this world, as it seemed that many of the audience were already doing a lot of stuff with their dreams. MadameWoo’s talk about travelling was good too. I couldn’t attend Martin Dufort’s powerpoint karaoke, but it seemed a lot had a blast with it. Diversity is great, and we can learn a lot from it.

Pauses/Sidetracks were great. There was lunch, then the coworking montreal special session. Have a look at the pictures. Many gave their opinion and I think the circle/open discussion format can be extented to the barcamp stage. Actually the main stage looks more like a classical university room where there is only one-way communication. I also had a project meeting with Patrick Tanguay and Hugh McGuire. Then there was dinner planned at Chinatown. All of them were great to know more about the people who attended barcamp. For instance, I had an interesting conversation about wikis and politics. and another one about VOIP and Gtalk hacks.

Simon Law and Fred Ngo organized Barcamp. And it was perfect. You know it when organization is transparent and doesn’t go in the way. I was baffled on how they were casual and joking, making it seem like they thought about organizing a barcamp in montreal the day before. I have organized events before and it has always been hell - promotion, catering, emergencies, handling registrants, handling rooms and furniture, sponsors… Congratulations to the duo then.

About barcamp’s future, it seems that Evan Prodroumou has some interesting thoughts about barcamp and other bloggers wrote about it too. Of course there is always room to improve and I think those who wrote the posts should then co-organize the next barcamp (barcampCanada), but my overall opinion is that BarcampMontreal2 was great. Great for diversity, great for meeting new smart people, great to get new ideas, great for collaboration and supporting projects in montreal.