Berlin Buzzwords Barcamp 2012

The Berlin Buzzwords BarCamp is back for our third year! Come along again for great discussions and knowledge sharing with your fellow attendees, on topics like Searching, Storing and Scaling. Note that we're in a different venue this year.

• Where: c-base, Rungestraße 20, 10179 Berlin
• Date: 3rd June 2012 (the evening before Berlin Buzzwords)
• When: 5.00pm - 9.30pm (registration from 4.30pm)
• Who: Eligible are all registered attendees of Berlin Buzzwords, who have signed up below

Only people who have put their name in the table below are guaranteed to be let in! If you'd like to come along, please sign up below, and list a brief bit of your interests.

Themes

In keeping with the main Berlin Buzzwords conference, we're going to be focusing on similar themes!

The overriding theme of the evening is NoSQL, with a side order of Search. We're especially keen for people to discuss, and give talks on:

• Using NoSQL in new areas
• NoSQL comparisons (eg which is the best project for different content problems?)
• Deploying NoSQL - case studies and war stories
• Searching - Apache Lucene + SOLR tips and tricks

However, being a BarCamp, the exact schedule won't be decided until the day, based on who comes, and what everyone wants to hear about and talk on!

What is it?

BarCamps are a kind of "un-conference", where the schedule isn't decided until the day, and is based on those who attend. Everyone is welcome at them, and everyone can participate in a variety of ways.

The BarCamp at Berlin Buzzwords will be back for our third year in 2012, and once again we'll be discussing things around the same themes as the main conference itself. Unlike with the main conference, we don't have a schedule that's defined in advance, just the topics/themes, and an idea of who's coming. We'll do the scheduling at the start, based on who comes and what interests them, then kick off. The schedule may change slightly though, if one topic turns out to be more interesting or bigger than we initially thought! We'll also try to provide some break-out space, so sessions which might just overrun can have somewhere to finish up in, without affecting the next session.

BarCamps are generally more active, participatory and inclusive than regular conferences. Everyone can take part, whether leading a session, providing helpful commentary and insights, sharing experiences, or just asking smart questions. You can also help by blogging / tweeting / sharing photos, to help capture the discussions and information, both for those not at the event, and yourselves for the future!

Sponsors

• Berlin Buzzwords - our sister event - 2 day conference on Monday 4th and Tuesday 6th June on Search, Store and Scale
• C-Base - kindly providing the venue
• 10gen - Food and Beer

If someone else would like to sponsor some more beer, then we wouldn't say no!

Schedule

Everything is taking place on the evening of Sunday 3rd June

Note - schedule is still provisional, we hope to confirm the start time shortly!

• 4.30pm - Doors open, registration begins
• 5.00pm - Welcome, and Introduction to BarCamps session
• 5.15pm - Session scheduling - you decide what you want to hear about!
• 5.30pm - First sessions begin
• ~ 7pm - Food arrives TBC
• 9.00pm - Sessions end
• 9.15pm - Retire to a nearby pub for more beer

Most sessions will run for 30 minutes, so we should be able to get through a lot of different topics and interests over the course of the night! We'll aim to run multiple sessions (probably 2, sometimes 3) in different rooms.

10gen have kindly agreed to sponsor food and drinks for the event. We're having a chat with them and the venue at the moment, we should know shortly exactly what food we'll be providing (though there will be some vegetarian food no matter what we go for!). We expect it'll be a similar thing to last year though. As well as the free beer from 10gen, we think there should also be a cash bar available. You can't bring your own drinks though, sorry.

For an idea of what the schedule might be like, see these pictures of the 2011 Schedule and the 2010.

Venue

Please note we're in a different venue this year!

This year, the BarCamp will be held at C-Base, which hosted last year's Monday night party. We've a number of spaces available at C-Base, with the exact mix to be used likely to depend on the weather. (We'll use the lovely garden outside if we can do!)

C-Base is located next to the river at Rungestrasse 20, 10179 Berlin. An ascii-art map is available, or you can find it on OpenStreetMap. It's a short walk from the Jannowitzbruecke S+U Bahn Station.

As with last year, we hope to have several rooms available for sessions.

Volunteers

If you'd like to help out, please sign up here! We're after people to help with:

• Registration (manning the desk, helping produce copies of the schedule etc)
• Local advice (for people coming to the BarCamp and the conference)
  • Please also have a look at the conference wiki, and add more information there!
• Setting up whiteboards, shedule charts, projectors etc before hand
• Posting the schedule online (once we've done the scheduling on the day)
• Duplicating the schedule for all the rooms

Sign Up

We're slightly limited on space, so we'd ask that people wishing to come along sign up below. If the main section is full, put yourself on the waiting list, and we'll let you know nearer the time if we'll be able to squeeze you in....

To sign up, make sure you're signed in to the buzzwords site (see just under the banner), then click "EDIT" in the top left, and edit this wiki page.

If the table above is full, please put yourself on the waiting list here:

Things we need

(please -cross out- if you're able to help out with something, and put your name next to it)

• -A projector for the 1st room- provided by C-Base
• A projector for the 2nd room
• Extra stationary for labelling, scheduling etc
• Beer? (10gen are kindly sponsoring beer and food, but we could always use more beer!)

The following will be supplied by Newthinking:

• Pens
• Markers
• Coloured A4 paper
• white A4 paper
• a roll of wrapping paper
• a roll of white sticky foil
• a pair of scissors
• masking tape
• scotch tape
• name tags

Getting There

The venue is C-Base, which hosted last year's Monday night party. It's not the same venue as last year's BarCamp!

The address is: Rungestrasse 20, 10179 Berlin. (C-Base is next to the river, head north from the road to find it)

To get to BarCamp from the main conference venue: Walk to Wittenbergplatz, and take either the U1 (change at Warschauer Str.) or U2 (change at Alexanderplatz) to Jannowitzbrucke. Walk across the bridge, then turn left into Rungestrasse. For more details see also the route planner at http://www.bvg.de

Tags for twitter flickr, delicious, ma.gnolia, technorati etc.

We'll be using the tag #bbuzz , in common with the main conference

What to bring

• Yourself!
• Laptop/Tablet/SmartPhone (so you can look things up, post etc)
• All the chargers/cables you'll need
• A plugboard (powerstrip) to make sure we have enough sockets
• If you're using a Mac for a presentation, VGA adapters
• Spare battery (if you need one to last 5+ hours)
• Camera
• An idea for a session, presentation, talk or hacking. Whatever, it's your choice!
• A smile
• ...?