Leaving for Pune in a while to attend the PHPCamp.
If you see me at PHPCamp, do stop by to say hi!
Updated on 20th Sept:
Just returned back from Pune after attending the PhpCamp. Will update this space soon with stories from the PhpCamp.
Updated on 21st Sept:
Here is my version of post PhpCamp analysis.
It was 9 in the morning and it was drizzling in Pune. There were 30 odd campers gathered at Persistent, the venue for Phpcamp. In a short while the rains were getting strong and so was the number of campers. By 10AM it was pouring in Pune and so were the campers at Phpcamp. I wonder was there a direct relation between the rains and campers? Amit kick started the event with 350 odd campers listening to him with absolute attention. Rohit and I tried to break some ice with an intro to barcamp culture and 3 words intro. By the time we finished, the rains were in full flow and so was the camp. More than 500 campers were raring to camp. While doing the ice breaking session, with Rohit, we found out that there were 20 odd campers who came all the way from Ahmadnagar for the PhpCamp. I checked with registration desk that by lunch time more than 700 campers had registered for the PHPcamp.
Phpcamp ran in 2 threads one was in the 7th floor cafeteria and other was on the 4th floor conference room. I have a crib about Persistent, why can't they give two room on the same floor and make life easy for the campers? I should hold on to the cribs for a while as I have few more of them. For a while let me focus on what all was discussed at the Phpcamp. There were variety of sessions like, Basics of Php, Discussion on Architecture of Php, Sessions on Php based CMSes like Joomla, Drupal, then there were sessions on Security of Php based sites and there were sessions on concept of Open Social as well. During the lunch time I interacted with a lot of campers and the feedback was very positive with most of them agreed that they learn a lot of things and were still looking forward to sessions post lunch.
I am very happy with the attention that events like Barcamps and Unconferences are getting. They attract a huge community following because they promise to deliver the right content from the right people. The reason why community follows camps and come from far flung places to attend even during pouring rains is that they get to learn a lot in a short span of time. Somehow the corporate world has woken up to this phenomenon and as with conferences they have woken on he wrong side of the bed. Almost in ever unconf these days you will find an organization trying to pimp itself among the techies. They go overboard with their promotions and blatant self selling. Somehow they fail to understand the correct way to be part of a camp. They need to realize that, if you keep pimping yourself someday you will get screwed. Satyam guys had practically hijacked one of the thread at Phpcamp and they kept talking about how good they are with Open Social and I don't remember on which slide were they talking about PHP. The worst was the declaration that, Social Networking sites are crap, but if you have business we are here to do the consulting. They want to do consulting of something they don't believe in? Anyhow that's their business model, my only crib is that they don't understand the camps and they left everyone in bad taste.
Camps are impossible to conduct without the selfless support of volunteers and Phpcamp had a vibrant bunch of volunteers from Symbiosis family. They did a fantastic job. Talking about fantastic job Amit pulled off a stunner of a camp. I remember he discussed Phpcamp with me 3 months back and I said may be we can keep it as a thread in the next camp, but he was excited about the idea and believed in it. He started with the camp and rest is history. Once again he proved that if you have right intent things will not only happen but will surprise you. Great work Amit and thanks for not listening to me.
At Phpcamp it was good to catch up with Rishi, Vipul, Varun, Tarun, Jai, Nishit, Saumil, Bhavya, Pramilla and many other blog readers of mine. It was great!
Pictures from the PHPCamp are available here.
Tarun Chandel
Another trip to Pune yipeee!
Friday, September 19, 2008
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7 comments:
Hey Tarun,
I was there on 2nd floor but not able to catch up with you.
Also in your past blog i suggested for preponing the date for BCP5 so when is it happening? any date decided?
Yea. I too suffered from the bookings process. At morning 9 AM one of the urorganizer told me that there will voting on sessions and hence registration will start only at 10:15 AM. Once registrations started on whiteboard, Satyam guy hijacked it and booked all sessions of 7th Floor. I remained only choice to book session at 4th Floor. But the response over there was also overwhelming.
- Pravin Nirmal
Yeah.. 3 sessions back to back on 7th floor by same company was not desirable. Dint find any variety of topics to discuss at the start.
--> Tajas: 2nd floor? The camp was on 4th and 7th. Or do you work with Persistent? If yes then please make them understand that it will help the camp if the rooms are near by.
BCP5 is on 8th November, doing it early is difficult so we pushed it beyond holidays. Still hunting for venue, any suggestions?
--> Pravin: The 4th Floor sessions were far better but campers were facing a problem as there was no place, even to stand on one leg in that room.
--> Rishi: Thanks to Satyam!
Tarun,
It's unfortunate that you hold such views which aren't even true. I don't wish to put a huge comment counterattacking every point you've said. However, I feel compelled to add at least one thing (which is completely my personal reaction) --4 out of 5 of my team's talks were on PHP:
1. PHP Shindig
2. Joomla (a CMS in PHP) + Shindig PHP
3. PHP Development Stack
4. OWASP PHP Top 5 + CSRF
In case you don't remember, there were some other talks that didn't have a bit of PHP, but for some strange reason you decide to replace them with ours. All we wanted was to share what we've learned and make people, especially students, comfortable with the idea of choosing PHP.
It's time you understand that an unconference is not about your or my choices, it's for the attendees and they seem to have gained quite a lot from it. I am sure you are on the PHPCamp mailing list and have read how much people have liked being exposed to OpenSocial and security ( http://groups.google.co.in/group/phpcamp/browse_thread/thread/5ec85306a380c81a ). In fact, one of the attendees has put up a new social n/w portal using Partuza for testing OpenSocial apps.
I really liked meeting you man and didn't expect such baseless comments from you; hence it surprises and amazes me even more.
Still, I appreciate your dedication at the camp and sincerely hope that we do smile and greet each other during our next meet.
--> Bipin: It was nice meeting you as well and the comment is not about you. But I know and you also know that it was a corporate agenda that you guys were carrying out at the camp. 5 talks from same organization you could have conducted a camp of your own.
At a time when camps are going for max 20 mins talk, phpcamp kept talks for 40 mins + for the only reason that tech talks should get more time. You could have packed the all your stuff in a single 40 mins presentation and that would have been the real powerful talk (everyone would have been praising for that, even me). There were a lot campers who wanted to conduct a session but were out of slots. My only crib is that you (as org) chose a wrong way to influence the community. You, personally, can understand that as you are a part of some communities.
I also sincerely hope the next time we meet at a camp you wont give me a choice to crib but all the reasons to smile.
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