BitNorth, an annual informal conference for technology communities but open for anyone, is scheduled at the end of the month. The event has a unique formula, with settings far away from Montreal, is similar to BarCamp in the sense that everyone has to participate, AND it’s the only tech event in the year without any Internet access. As seen in last year’s edition, it’s an eclectic and fun crowd with creative ideas.
For anyone who haven’t been yet at BitNorth, here’s an email interview with Alistair Croll (@acroll), the event’s original instigator
Can you present yourself? Can you also present the other team members organizing BitNorth?
The original idea:
I spend a lot of time running conferences with Techweb, O’Reilly, and others. Often, that’s one person talking, and others listening. And as everyone says, the best part of the conference is the networking in the lobby. So back in 2008, I decided I’d like to have a different kind of conference — one where everyone who attends is a participant. It seemed like Montreal was missing this kind of event. Through Ian Rae (@ianrae), we found an amazing facility up North called CAMMAC, which is the Canadian Amateur Music Association’s summer camp. And then word got out to around 50 people.
The tone of the event:
It’s very informal — this is a camp, after all. I’d describe it as one third TED, one third Foocamp, and one third Ignite. The only rule is that there are no spectators. While many of the attendees are in the tech community, the topics people present vary widely: from the carbon footprint of beer to carbon dating to dating in Mexico; from quantum theory to kite repair to the history of Ultimate Frisbee; from how root cellars work to Dubai’s building boom to the importance of personas in UI.
It can get a bit vulgar at times, and by Sunday we’re all feeling pretty scruffy. But that’s by design: some local companies have offered to sponsor it, but so far, we’ve declined. We don’t want to compromise on the event or have to regulate things too much. If you want formal, polite conferences, there are plenty of those.
The CAMMAC facility is amazing, too. There’s a lake, with canoes and a boathouse; hiking; and a campfire area for night-time.
Who runs it:
Since we run it at a loss, it’s mostly volunteers. The first year, it was just me, with a bunch of locals helping; the second year, Alex Bowyer (@alexbfree) and I ran it, with help from others; this year, since I’ve just had a daughter, my sister is helping out. The folks at Syntenic (Ian Rae @ianrae and others) and IDG (Kim Fuller) all lend a hand, too. And everyone who attends is contributing, of course.
Attendees:
We try very hard to find a male/female balance. Christine (@_hristine) wrote about this and I firmly believe that having a balance there makes a huge difference to the conference vibe and tone. We also have about 10 people coming in from California, and 5 from Boston, this year — so it’s become a fairly distributed group.
We don’t really market the event much — CAMMAC can only handle 60 people or so if everyone wants a decent room, and we fill up pretty fast. It’s hard to strike the right balance between an open event anyone can attend, and picking people who will be a good fit. So we open registration to returning attendees first, then their friends, and finally the general public.
What’s that human2.0 idea? Future androids you want to engineer? or does that represent the typical 2010 Montréaler using Foursquare in his iPhone and at the same working remotely with a global team on his laptop?
This year’s theme:
Human 2.0 is a blog Alex Bowyer, Angela Case (@acase) and I launched earlier this year, that looks at the convergence of computers and humans. IMHO this is the biggest ethical and technical question of the twenty-first century, and we write and share links on the subject there. So this year, we figured we’d suggest that as the theme.
The themes are just a suggestion: in 2008 it was “the other 99%”, talking about how the rest of the world uses technology; and in 2009 it was “disguise”, since it was Hallowe’en.
If BitNorth is Ignite, TED and FooCamp together, surely there were great ideas presented at the last edition. Do you know of any projects launched or startups influenced by previous Bitnorth edition?
Projects and startups:
It’s not really focused on tech startups, although there’s a fair amount of tech. Will Stevens showed us how to fix a kite, and that’s part of his new venture, Kiteaid. James Duncan and Bryan Bogensberg sold their cloud startup, Reasonablysmart, to Joyent, shortly after the first conference, in part with the assistance of other attendees. Several other attendees have gone on to work together on projects.
There have been some couples who met at Bitnorth, too, which is always nice.
In the end, when you spend a weekend with someone in a summer camp — someone described it as “a sleepover for smart people” — you definitely get to know them better.
by katrientje
In an interesting note, why isn’t there no Internet at BitNorth? That’s like a basic need for us techies. Add that to the fact that you actually have to go away from Montréal. No coffee shops with Ile-sans-fil. Perhaps there is no 3G coverage. Perhaps you have also arranged that there won’t be any power plugs. And outdoors. Gosh… Will you scan for iPhones and blackberries at the entrance to prevent ad-hoc wifi networks?
The “disconnect to reconnect” part:
When we first found the place, we didn’t know it had no net (and nearly no phone signal.) When we found out, we quickly scrambled to brand the event (“disconnect to reconnect.”) And you know what? It worked. Instead of tweeting, liveblogging, and checking in, people interacted.
In 2008, one of the attendees — who runs engineering for Conviva in the Valley — had to get online Sunday morning because they were launching their service. So he huddled over the only connected workstation, in the basement, while everyone else got chair massages and participated in the Birds of a Feather sessions upstairs.
Last year, the place had actually added a Wifi router and satellite, and some people were able to get online. But at the end of the weekend, everyone voted to not turn it on this year. There’s something awesome about disconnecting for a weekend and just being with people. And if those people have all spent time researching something they’re passionate about, and are participatory and outgoing, you won’t want to get online anyway: there’s more than enough interesting in the room with you.
Can you give us a taste of the topics presented at this year’s BitNorth? Surely, you got hints from friends registering?
This year’s topics:
I don’t want to give too much away, because finding out what the topics are is part of the fun. But here are a few of them:
- Understanding and teaching scale
- Food, love, and sex
- Democratizing healthcare with microfinance
- A better way to mug: how to improve assault through effective communication
- Toys to improve collaboration
- Why classical music sucks
- How to make tamales (mexican dish)
- Lessons learned from my MIRA guide dog
- Tablets versus unions: the future of education
Also, while everyone chooses the topic of their Short Bit — usually 5 minutes in length — that (and the open bar on Saturday) are the only parts that are certain. We add other stuff: in 2008, we had a panel of 4 kids aged 9 to 14 telling us how they use the Web, as well as guided hangover meditation and professional chair massages. Last year, we played Werewolf until the wee hours, ran a gameshow, and did Powerpoint Karaoke as an icebreaker. In fact, some of those Karaoke decks were used at Chirp by Anil Dash and @ev from Twitter.
Incidentally, we also plan way ahead of time — next year, it’ll be on September 15; no topic yet, though!
Sébastien was very open and didn’t hold out details that others might keep private, such as his discussions with VCs, the problems they faced in product development, the ups and downs at Praized, and also the excitement of building a product.
Here, the focus is about learning and everyone is welcomed to ask questions about the “entrepreneur process”.
