Simon is a hands-on software architect who works within 
[Twitter] simonbrown: wondering whether Adobe's commercial approach to Flex Builder will limit adoption of Flex ... which will be a shame, because I quite like it
[Coding the Architecture] As mentioned before, we were speakers at, and community sponsors of the Software Architect 2008 conference (3rd-5th June 2008, London). This is the first dedicated software architecture conference that I've been to and the majority of the ...
Unconferencing behind the corporate firewall
It can work
Behind the corporate firewall we run regular after-work events where people can share their knowledge and experience about a particular topic. Typically these topics are of a technical nature and we usually get a cross-section of people attending. It's a great way to get people together from multiple disparate client sites while providing a way to share knowledge at the same time. Traditionally we run 2 or 3 twenty minute sessions in the classic presentation style. That is, people come prepared with slide-shows that they want to present and we have a few minutes for Q&A afterwards.
This month, I wanted to try something a bit different and we went BarCamp/unconferenece style, condensed down into a couple of hours. We still had the same number of sessions take place and they were still of a technical nature. The difference, however, was that each session was more of a roundtable discussion. During each session, a few PowerPoint slides or a short demo introduced the topic or kept it on track, but that was it. Rather than everybody facing the presenter with a blank stare on their face, we quickly formed a circle and everybody started interacting. And I do mean everybody, which is quite a change from the norm.
I'm really pleased with the outcome. It felt quite relaxed and although we sometimes deviated from the topic that we were supposed to be discussing, everbody seemed to get something out of it. Compare this more natural conversational format to presenters nervously delivering their content and I think we have a useful alternative format for our regular knowledge sharing events. I'm now even more convinced that the BarCamp/unconferencing format can work behind a corporate firewall although we still have a few things to work out yet. For example, how do we best distribute the notes that were taken during the sessions? How do we convince more people to come along? Which topics work best in this format and which should be shared via the normal presentation mechanism? These questions, along with others are still to be addressed. An internal blog is probably best, but then I'm baised.
Re: Unconferencing behind the corporate firewall
I dwell in a small city beside a warming and fish-denuded gulf with square kilometers of thawing antarctic ice encroaching on its southern shores. There may be a few other souls who appreciate the sorts of software I crave in this town, but I'm not sure I know any of them. One or two who've passed through, perhaps. The last time I was in London, I got married. That was in 1978. Learned CICS while I was there.
So, when I scratched the itch that led to a laptop that's almost my closest friend, I looked for a blogging tool. Found pebble... yes, that was around the time the southern hemisphere bug hit. Never mind, I've been around that block a few times now. I installed a security key on the laptop which changed something, and my pebble account went somewhere else. A chunk of notes from early July reappeared on me this afternoon when I deployed the pebble I'd just built.
My day job's testing a J2EE textual / .NET GIS lashup, which is sometimes demanding, so I'm looking for value from the few hours I can find for creative work.
I've just learned enough Eclipse to bolt a 2.0beta JBoss IDE onto an up to date Eclipse 3.3 and WTP. The packaging in the JBoss tool's quite attractive - we'll see whether it holds together long enough to deploy a debugger friendly pebble.war into some Tomcat or another...
The things some people'll do for fun. So, being reminded, I thought I'd say there're rather a lot of things I like about Pebble. Thanks
Re: Unconferencing behind the corporate firewall
These are 10 tips for such organizations.. based on the success of the MindTree Osmosis unconference -- a unconference behind a firewall.
10 Tips for corporate unconference
