Comments on: So an African walks into a Bar(Camp)

By: Justin Hartman

Justin Hartman — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 19:41:48 +0000

PPS - A cool blog post on BarCamp Jozi via @prieurdp on Twitter.

By: Justin Hartman

Justin Hartman — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 19:36:33 +0000

@Carl – the problem I have with BarCamp Jozi is I only found out about via looking at the BarCamp website. I think the point Lester raises here is an interesting one. On the one had we have BarCamps to create awareness however carrying the message is not always that simple or clear. I’d like to know how we can all help in creating the awareness because BarCamps are a necessary event in promoting brand “Africa”.

Maybe guys like Oz and others can share their advice and if they like, can even contact us directly (dudes@afrigator.com) with their thoughts. I’d love to associate ourselves with causes like this (and we have with BarCamp Africa).

PS. @phillippe – we are planning better cross-language support for Afrigator. It’s been too long that Afrigator hasn’t supported languages other than English.

By: Armand du Plessis

Armand du Plessis — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:38:58 +0000

Barcamp rocked. <40 people is the ideal size for Barcamp. Even with the relatively small number of people we didn’t get through all the talks. Breaking it up would make it too hard too choose, so many people on so many diverse but incredibly interesting topics.

Where else would you have talks ranging from hacking your tastebuds with miracle fruit to string theory to beyond REST/HTTP in one intense weekend

By: philippe

philippe — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:41:34 +0000

Au Sénégal on parle sans doute beaucoup français. Does Barcamp speak french? Does Afrigator speak French?

By: Oz

Oz — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:37:30 +0000

Interesting. I have observed this too. There is a very simple solution here. Get one non techie marketing guy on board. I have tried giving free advise to some of this guys myself but if felt like once you cant throw all the techie terms in the air, you do not have much of a listening ear.

By: Carl Spies

Carl Spies — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:17:58 +0000

Barcamp was great

Managed to get Blaine Cook (former architect of Twitter) and Evan “Rabble” from Yahoo (developing FireEagle : http://fireeagle.yahoo.net/) to present as well as some super smart people like Paul Cook (Theoretical Physicist back in SA after his CalTech stint for a PhD in string theory).

Tweets here: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=barcampjozi
and a list of blog posts as they happen at the bottom of the page on: http://barcamp.org/BarCampJohannesburg like http://langabi.name/blog/2008/10/12/barcampjozi-08-day-1

You’re welcome to pop by the Cerebra offices for an Akoha.com starter deck too – we’re equal opportunity do-gooders

By: Simone Puterman

Simone Puterman — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:16:21 +0000

Don’t forget traditional media Make use of Bizcommunity.com’s event calendar – http://marketing.bizcommunity.com/Calendar/196/11.html – events are mentioned in the relevant newsletters.

By: Conrad Strydom

Conrad Strydom — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:05:04 +0000

Yeah, this is a problem. I think a lot of the organisers underestimate how much work it is to spread the word. In an environment where there is no real twitterbase or muti clone to fallback on you have to do the hardwork yourself.

Back in 2006 I compiled a list of bloggers and professionals that I thought would be interested and basically spammed them the good news.

I sent mail out to different industry mailing lists and eventually caught some traction.

Because BarCamp depends on a participation formula people would constantly ask what they could do for me to secure their spot, and I would always say: “Blog, and spread the word dude”.

Give yourself a good couple months to gain traction, minimum 3.

By: Darb

Darb — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:01:12 +0000

There are still early plans for hosting *camp, a similar un-conference idea. See http://wiki.geekdinner.org.za/wiki/Star_Camp/Cape_Town_2008

There was one last year (see http://wiki.geekdinner.org.za/wiki/Star_Camp/Cape_Town_2007)