Barcamp Bangalore 4: Collectively speaking

 

Bangalore is a fascinating city. BCB4 is happening on 28th and 29th of this month at the Indian Institute of Management.

 

The Barcamp out here is spectacular for at least three reasons.

1. big
   With over 600 registrants at BCB3 in March/April, this is the largest Barcamp in the word. And if you talk to the people who make it happen, they will, in classical duality-of-life style, tell you that quality rules over quantity.
   
2. times
   Organising anything of this size is rope-climbing tough. And doing that once a quarter. Oh my God. And that too, when there is no direct monetary profit to be reaped. I am neither an economist nor a sociologist (And never wanted to be), but this calls for some serious introspection into human behaviour.
   
3. new
   
   Bangalore takes the definition of an unconference to a new level. When the definition of unconference itself was starting to gather a cruddy layer of formality -- the same new Ajax, Web 2.0, ROR, Bangalore just tore the definitions with BCB3: SocialTech. And this time around, BCB4: Collectives. Whether you like it or not, whether you like your screens in "Beta" sauce or "Classic", doesn't matter; you have to raise your hat to this communities immense momentum to initiate, drive and execute new untested ideas. There are, like in all such situations, a few thought-leaders, and I wont embarrass them by calling out their name, but to drive these ideas through a jungle of a thousand techies (who by design are themselves anti-authoritative, anti-norm), needs a different kind of drive.

 

Collectives

For those who have not seen the definition or are just wondering whether this has something to do with the paradigm of Java Collections, fear not. It has a simpler name -- BoF - Birds of a Feather. In any conference, you are likely to find small groups of people sticking together and discussing their own personal sweet thing. Could be a passion, could be a problem-of-the day.

Collectives are just that. You get together around a topic or domain and have fun. Two days of camaraderie (oh that's one more thing.. I do not think any Barcamp comes in a two day package).

There are collective around

• core interests: Internet, Ruby, Python, Ajax -- the works
• classical stuff : Compiler design, functional programming, memory overflows
• offbeat stuff: Bicycling in Bangalore, Music (jam/clinics)

And yes, there is also a "Bored of Collectives" collective.

Complete List

 

Hack Night

Two nights of unbound fun. What more do I say ? I like this a lot, at times I felt that the last three Barcamps was more on the "say" side of the say:do ratio.

 

SpeedGeeking

 As far as I recall, siddhartha came up with this idea to have this at BCB4. Here are more details.

 

In all, I am looking forward to this. I will have my usual baby-sitting duties on Saturday, so will be in late. Build new ties, renew old ones, and oh, I am doing a guitar clinic, to answer "all the questions your ever wanted to ask about guitars but found no one with short enough hair".

 

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