I can’t wait for this to come around again in March. It’s an unconference and it’s free and always at a weekend. You might think — oh dear, on a Saturday? I couldn’t possibly carve out my weekend to do this stuff… You’d be very surprised.
All the people that come to this love doing stuff like analytics, optimisation, global scale projects, small startups, hacking, counting, interpreting and visualising data. And there is no program. Yes. No tracks, no schedule, no keynote speakers, no long boring intro speeches.
It’s about the board — it’s a big white space where you just walk up, stick up a talk for one of the many rooms available and do stuff.
You might present, have a discussion, obsess over a tiny detail with geeks, show a new data visualisation tool, argue fiercely over something, fix problems, share pain and generally laugh, listen, talk, learn and meet a great crowd.
Anyone is welcome to make a meeting about anything and it works brilliantly.
The secret is the board, because it’s not programmed months in advance — and it changes throughout the day. People ask others to come and help each other with sessions or chip in. Audience and speakers participate in discussions and everyone gets time to ask tough questions — even break out sessions to continue them.
The fluid and dynamic nature of stuff means that challenges will be issued (“That was bullshit”) or new ideas spawned over a coffee, meaning it’s random, interesting, informative and mentally stretching all at the same time.
Some of the best genius level people — hackers, artists, data scientists par extraordinaire — that I’ve met in this space, I bumped into at this thing. And did I mention it’s free?
They also have a special allocation of spaces for international visitors, making it an ace event to encourage meshing of ideas wider afield. A big hat tip to Peter O’Neill and all the crew for making my top 4 — we all love you for making this.
Now read part 3— “Marketing Festival, Brno, Czech Republic”
