This is a list of books currently on my To Read shelf... literally. I do not suggest or anti-suggest any of them at this time as I haven't read them yet.
Current Efforts:
Blue Parabola, LLC
HubAustin
web2Project
PHP'ers:
Cal Evans
Eli White
Elizabeth Naramore
Joe LeBlanc
Matthew Turland
Matthew Weier O'Phinney
Planet PHP
Tony Bibbs
Business/mISV:
Bob Walsh
Eric Sink
Joel Spolsky
Micah Baldwin
Paul Graham
Past Projects:
CodeSnipers
HOBY
Judicial Watch
mobile FoxNews.com
NRTW
Great Tools I use:
Drupal
GitHub
NetBeans for PHP
phpUnit
Subversion
Zend Framework
This is not the home of dotProject or web2project. It is the home of CaseySoftware, LLC. Any dotProject support questions should be referred to their support forums.
Well, I have good news and bad news.
The Good News: php|tek 2009 will have an Unconference!
The Bad News: I'm in charge.
(cue mad scientist laughter)
Let's be clear right off the bat: All [name]Camps (Bar or otherwise) are unconferences but not all unconferences are [name]Camps. The distinction - and this seems to be widely accepted - is that [name]Camp sessions should be selected day of and everyone needs to participate in some manner. Uncons can have the above but don't really have to... which is how it works at these Uncons which are attached to conferences.
Therefore, here's the (estmated) format for this con/uncon combination:
So here's your mission:
If you have ideas for an unconference session - whether you'd like to do it or not - write it down and start warming people up on it. We'll work to allow conference attendees to vote in sessions which are the most interesting to them.
About 60 days in advance, we'll announce a handful of sessions. Another batch will be announced 30 days in advance. Another small batch will be announced 2 weeks before and a handful of blocks will be kept open to be selected once we get to Chicago.
The past year has been exciting for me personally in terms of unconferences. I've had the opportunity to attend PodCampDC and then helped organize the first SocialDevCamp East and BarCampDC 2 and was given the lead on the ZendCon Uncon by my highly esteemed friend Cal Evans.... and now someone has been foolish willing to do it yet again. Thanks Marco!
Organization
Wow, it seems every conference the unconferences get more organized. It's good to have some form of organization, but I hope it won't take away the charm of the free format it all started with: just a room and some people, and a guy or girl with a message.
Sort of...
I tend to think of it as less "organized" and more "channeled".
For the ZendCon fun, it was mostly a matter of tapping people and saying "I've heard a lot of people talking about X which you have some expertise in... care to come talk?" with a handful of sessions thrown in at the last minute. For the most part, there were few slides, not a huge amount of prep, and lots of the Law of Two Feet.
My goal this time around it to make sure:
a) people know it's happening;
b) that the topics are what people actually want to hear and have asked for; and
c) that it stays laid back and less formal... less slides, more explanation... less clip art, more hand drawings... less polish, more meat.
And if people forget that the regular conference is happening, oh well... ;)
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