[LRUG] [ANN] One day Ruby event in London, later this year. Interested?

[James Adam]

On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 5:15 PM, Ben Griffiths <bengriffiths at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sounds like a fab idea. I was wondering about doing something similar
> a while back, but turns out I'm a lazy sod.

It only took us a year and a half to pull our fingers out :)

> Some of the things that have worried me about previous conferences I've been to:
>
> • gender balance - why are we so poor at this in the IT community?

I suspect the only way to correct this in the short term is for people
to volunteer to come in drag. Seriously though, I'm not sure how we
might address this within the context of Ruby Manor, but if you have
ideas...?

> • everything is international - 'from Londoners, for Londoners' is too
> extreme, but fed up with stateside speakers.

We won't be paying anyone, so the only way stateside speakers will be
talking is on their own dollar. Ha!

> • no hacking space - should be a place for projects to get kicked off
> and collaborators found.

We've talked about this a lot, and while it seems there needs to be
some structure to the event, that doesn't mean everyone needs to feel
bound by it. The issue with "expensive" conferences that I find is
that I'm always feeling guilty about not getting my money's worth from
the presentations by skipping them. Remove the cost and this problem
should pretty much disappear.

> • it's a big drag when talking to people afterwards who didn't come to
> the conference that videos take so long to appear, if indeed they ever
> do.

Not sure about this - I think we'd rather do something cheap without
promises of video, than pay for AV and then have to piss about
cleaning it up. But yet again, if someone can figure out how to do it
for cheap (free) and is willing to put in the time, that's grand.

> • never, ever enough coffee.

Bring your own! One of the ways to get rid of the cost of a conference
is to remove the aspects that organisers can use to justify prices. So
don't expect lunch, mid-morning pastries, t-shirts or bags!

> Bah, I'm in whatever - you chaps will put on a great do. Need any help?

We'll be in touch :)

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* J *
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