Nicole and other RecentChangesCamp folks have been discussing holding an RCC in Boston next Spring. That sounds like fun, and it's been a long time since we had such an event here (not counting the small semantic wiki event a couple months back)... but as Nicole points out, we need a venue suitable for a 2-day ~150 people unconference.
Nicole - are there specific people we should draw in from the Boston area? We should look into local facilitators. All - do you have a space in mind that you think would make sense?
On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 2:07 PM, Nicole Willson artisticaltruist@gmail.com wrote:
< Recent Changes 2011:
basically everyone wants to have it in Boston so I agreed to find a venue. I'm trying to get a team together and have been talking to some wikiHow and library school people. I find it interesting that Marc wants us to find a venue in two weeks when it took so long to get a venue in Montreal (a socialist center and the only place where I've ever seen a needle disposal unit in a public bathroom, but good nonetheless). I think it'd be good to talk about this at some point, so that all the Boston local organizers are on the same page. I can meet on Thursday or Friday evening this week and my schedule is pretty open next week. I can also be reached by phone at 857-272-0394 (temporary number) or 617-325-2222 (home number).
There are a number of colleges in the area that might have space. In particular, there is always Harvard or MIT, but there is also space at Northeastern University (I have been to a hall here for another event that would definitely work for us if we could get it), Emerson College, Boston University and Tufts University (probably the others as well, but these are the ones I thought would be most convenient to people in Boston) for this type of thing.
Bhushan Deshpande
On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 11:40, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
Nicole and other RecentChangesCamp folks have been discussing holding an RCC in Boston next Spring. That sounds like fun, and it's been a long time since we had such an event here (not counting the small semantic wiki event a couple months back)... but as Nicole points out, we need a venue suitable for a 2-day ~150 people unconference.
Nicole - are there specific people we should draw in from the Boston area? We should look into local facilitators. All - do you have a space in mind that you think would make sense?
On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 2:07 PM, Nicole Willson artisticaltruist@gmail.com wrote:
< Recent Changes 2011:
basically everyone wants to have it in Boston so I agreed to find a
venue.
I'm trying to get a team together and have been talking to some wikiHow
and
library school people. I find it interesting that Marc wants us to find a venue in two weeks when it took so long to get a venue in Montreal (a socialist center and the only place where I've ever seen a needle
disposal
unit in a public bathroom, but good nonetheless). I think it'd be good to talk about this at some point, so that all the Boston local organizers
are
on the same page. I can meet on Thursday or Friday evening this week and
my
schedule is pretty open next week. I can also be reached by phone at 857-272-0394 (temporary number) or 617-325-2222 (home number).
Wikimedia-boston mailing list Wikimedia-boston@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-boston
So, what we talked about at RoCoCo (French-Canadian Recent Changes Camp) was having it somewhere in Boston that is near a lot of hotels/places to stay and a bunch of restaurants (particularly vegetarian ones or a food court) in case there is no budget for three days of food (which has nearly happened in the past). I was thinking that downtown Boston might be better for that (Northeastern, Emerson, Suffolk, BU and Simmons). My reservation about Tufts is that there needs to be nearby lodging options at a bunch of different price points and I don't know if that's available. Also it's kind of out of the way from the Davis Sq. t-stop.There are some (like Jack Herrick) who think it'd be best to have it at the Berkman Center or at least involve them in some way since they are "kindred spirits".
I thought of Stata Center, but one of the issues is that we need a big open space where everyone can sit for opening and closing circle. When the Boston Skillshare was there, everyone had to go into separate classrooms (like at Libre Planet '09 at Harvard's Cabot Center) and while it could work, it's not optimal.
And the venue itself doesn't have to be a university. Past Recent Changes Camps have also been at corporate offices, a university space that doubles as a gallery, a conference center at a university-run hotel and a socialist center. I was even thinking that the Paulist Center near Park St. T stop could work if Wifi could be set up. Secular events are held there all the time.
We could also have it at a corporate office like that Google or Microsoft. The upside (and yes, there is one) is that we may be able to get free space (which isn't mandatory, but would be nice since we could use the venue money for other things, particularly if it is going to continue to be hard to get sponsorship). The downside is that it may not be a neutral space and people in the free software community might not attend for that reason.
Please let me know if I am leaving out any venues that have been used for tech conferences in the past.
Right now getting a venue is the main priority. After that, I'm told, the rest of the conference will magically fall into place. For more info on what was discussed re: RCC 2011 at RoCoCo see http://eiximenis.wikimedia.org/RCC2011.
Recent Changes Camp will be three days long. As part of it, there been talk of having an open house with some wiki 101 type courses that we can market to the local Boston community (as in "If can only attend one thing, make it _____.") There might be some affinity group meetings added into the mix as well.
As for facilitation, that is run by a separate group of people, but you can make recommendations on the planning list (rcc-planning@googlegroups.com). I think Anne Goldenberg (bilingual facilitator and organizer for RoCoCo) is heading this committee but I'm not entirely sure. Also, there has been a trend in recent years toward having members of the wiki community facilitate. Ted Ernst facilitated RCC '09 and Anne facilitated this past RoCoCo. BlueOxen was going to pay the travel costs for an English-language facilitator who couldn't make it, and John Abbe was going to take his place but never made it to the conference.
As for local outreach, I think we definitely need to include the Berkman Center. Other than that, I will contact the library school over at Simmons as well as the Social Media groups I'm involved in (Boston Media Makers, Social Media Club Boston). Also, local wiki companies (Povo, Edit Me) and anyone who works on wikis or collaborative software projects. Krystle Chung, who works as the Community Support person for wikiHow, has agreed to head up the marketing effort and I've already told her that I will send her a long list of local press and websites that need to be contacted. We have a lot of talented people who have agreed to work on all six of the teams which are local (venue/food), marketing, sponsorship, budget, facilitation.
To anyone who is interested in planning, we are having conference calls on the first Saturday of every month. There is also the planning list rcc-planning@googlegroups.com and #wiki on freenode where a lot of the planning for Montreal got done.
Last (but not least) there will be a one-day Recent Changes Camp on August 11 at the University of Canberra. If you know any Australian wiki folk, please spread the word.
Thanks!
On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 1:27 PM, Bhushan Deshpande bhushan.rd@gmail.comwrote:
There are a number of colleges in the area that might have space. In particular, there is always Harvard or MIT, but there is also space at Northeastern University (I have been to a hall here for another event that would definitely work for us if we could get it), Emerson College, Boston University and Tufts University (probably the others as well, but these are the ones I thought would be most convenient to people in Boston) for this type of thing.
Bhushan Deshpande
On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 11:40, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
Nicole and other RecentChangesCamp folks have been discussing holding an RCC in Boston next Spring. That sounds like fun, and it's been a long time since we had such an event here (not counting the small semantic wiki event a couple months back)... but as Nicole points out, we need a venue suitable for a 2-day ~150 people unconference.
Nicole - are there specific people we should draw in from the Boston area? We should look into local facilitators. All - do you have a space in mind that you think would make sense?
On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 2:07 PM, Nicole Willson artisticaltruist@gmail.com wrote:
< Recent Changes 2011:
basically everyone wants to have it in Boston so I agreed to find a
venue.
I'm trying to get a team together and have been talking to some wikiHow
and
library school people. I find it interesting that Marc wants us to find
a
venue in two weeks when it took so long to get a venue in Montreal (a socialist center and the only place where I've ever seen a needle
disposal
unit in a public bathroom, but good nonetheless). I think it'd be good
to
talk about this at some point, so that all the Boston local organizers
are
on the same page. I can meet on Thursday or Friday evening this week and
my
schedule is pretty open next week. I can also be reached by phone at 857-272-0394 (temporary number) or 617-325-2222 (home number).
Wikimedia-boston mailing list Wikimedia-boston@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-boston
wikimedia-boston@lists.wikimedia.org