As of this moment, there are only 21 spots left, so if you haven’t got your ticket, head over to http://barcampyxe.eventbrite.com!

After getting your ticket, if you plan to speak, tell us about your talk! Just fill out this form: http://bit.ly/16hfLbk and once we have that info, we’ll add your talk details to this website!

Show your love for the Saskatoon tech community! If you’re interested in sponsoring BarCamp, we want to talk to you! Email camp@barcampsaskatoon.org if you’d like to support BarCamp (and get kudos on Twitter and on this website for your generosity!)

So get your tickets, tell your friends, and get ready for BarCamp! If you have any questions, just tweet us @barcampstoon!

Saturday, have a hearty brunch; that is, arrive fed, not hungry. Food comes later. When you arrive at the Avenue Building, as close to noon as possible, take the elevator or the stairs to the 4th floor. VendAsta’s HQ is a big open common area, surrounded by closed-in offices. Key rooms will be well-signed. There will be a room with tables upon which you will participate in the fine Saskatchewan winter party tradition of (no, not THAT) … piling coats. Keep your valuables on you.

Facing the elevators, the men’s washroom is to the right and the women’s washroom is to the left. Enjoy.

Your first stop will be to register. We’ve moved the registration away from the elevators, so there will be less crowding than last year. Optional cash donations will be accepted, and funds not used to cover the day’s incidentals will all go toward Movember. When you register and pick up your Tshirt (if you bought one), also let us know if you’re planning to talk (whether it’s already listed on the Speaker’s page or not). Let us know things like whether it’s a 5 minute talk or a 45 minute talk or somewhere between, and whether you have to be done by a certain time.

Next, find where we’re setting up the schedule and provide your input to Blaine. See the post about this.

Depending on how punctual people are, and how smoothly the schedule goes together, we will kick things off around 1:00 with some announcements in the common area. Please understand that because of the on-the-spot unconference-ness of this all, it might be closer to 1:30, but we will do our best to start before that. Enjoy the company of your fellow tech community peeps and tweeps while we get stuff together.

Talks will take place in one of three rooms: Skypad, Area 51, and the Bend. All will be labeled. Each room has a sound system and projector. Speakers can bring a USB key, laptop (HDMI or VGA) or use cloud-based service like Google Docs or Prezi.

After a talk or two, food (provided by sponsors) and Paddock Wood beer (tickets will be sold at a nominal price to those who are 19+) will be available in the common area. Talks will continue, so we thank you for holding your inevitable awesome conversations in the common area out of respect for those presenting and listening. Supper will arrive … around supper time of course.

After the talks finish around 8:00 (or later if there are a lot of long talks), there will likely be some mingling and socializing as things wind down. After that, some of us at least, will likely congregate for the so-called BeerCamp at a nearby establishment (details to be figured out, unconference-style, at BarCamp).

The volunteer planning team thanks you for doing your part in making BarCamp a success: showing up, talking, participating, socializing, and helping out where you can. Your constructive feedback will be solicited after the event. Unless we do it all perfectly, which you will know by the double rainbow over the Avenue Building, in the dead of night. Look for it.

If you have further questions, let @barcampstoon know. See you Saturday.

We do not have a schedule… yet.

When you arrive at BarCamp and sign in, if you want to speak we’ll have big sticky notes and markers to write down your name and talk title. Shortly after registration and welcome, we’ll make the schedule together as a group. Blaine Korte is The Schedule Maker and he will be facilitating and inputting the grid content that will end up projected, so that everyone can easily see it.

This is a strategic process that lends itself to flexibility and co-operation (and sometimes math). When we are putting together the schedule we’ll organize the talks by time, location (room or space with seating) and have to consider of the subject matter so that we don’t schedule talks that will be competing for the same audience. We also have a few people with other important commitments on Nov.3rd and need to speak earlier or later. So, we’ll also make sure that these people get a chance to speak at a time that works.

We will have as many sessions as time allows, with the amount of space available. If you have any other questions about making the schedule let us know on Twitter @barcampstoon.

Vendasta is hosting us again this year. It’s on the 4th floor of the Avenue Building at 220 3rd Avenue South. If you’re planning to attend the whole event and have a few beers, we suggest getting dropped off and picked up by someone, or taking a taxi, or taking the bus ($3 exact change each way). Several buses stop right by VendAsta, and many more go to the bus mall a short walk away. The Saskatoon Transit website can help.

If you bike to Barcamp, the Vendastans who are regular cyclists recommend chaining your bike to various metal fixtures in clear view on 3rd Ave. There’s no indoor storage, and there have been thefts from their outdoor locked cage, so we won’t have access to it.

If you drive, and are staying longer than a couple hours, you’ll want to park in a lot instead of at a meter. Here’s a map of parking lots around VendAsta.

View Parking near VendAsta in a larger map

Please arrive as close to noon as possible so we can have a speedy check-in and schedule set-up. Tweet @barcampstoon if you have more questions about getting to BarCamp 2012.

Time for you to start thinking about doing a talk.

If you’re a first-time BarCamp attendee, you are not expected to do a talk (although you can, if you want to). There are other ways to help out: tweet about the fact that you’re going (our hashtag is #barcampyxe). Tell your friends, and invite them if they’re interested. See if your employer would sponsor us. On the big day, come and enjoy the atmosphere, find out what BarCamp is all about, and have a few interesting discussions with good people about fascinating things.

If you have been to BarCamp before but have never done a talk, maybe this is your year. It’s good experience, and looks great on a resume or year-end review. BarCamp is a casual, low-key event; no one is expecting you to be a golden orator. And maybe you’ll discover that you really can put together a talk and deliver it, and share your ideas and experiences with people who want to hear what you have to say. I hope you’ll consider it.

And I know there will be people presenting who have done talks in previous years. They know: it’s worth it to get your thoughts down on virtual paper and air them in front of an interested crowd. I can’t wait to hear what some of the BarCamp regulars have come up with this year.

If this is you: inexperienced speaker, wizened hack, or somewhere in between, head on over to the Attending page and sign up to talk. You don’t even have to know WHAT you’re going to talk about yet (although deciding well in advance and preparing notes or slides is certainly recommended).

You don’t have to have a long talk. Speaking slots are 45 minutes; talking for 30 minutes and allowing for Q&A easily fills that time. But if what you have is 10 minutes of talk, that’s great too.

Every year I hope someone will do a talk about computer animation. Or photo editing. Or being a techie parent. What tools do you use to get your work done? What have you done in the last year to make your job or your customers’ lives easier? What new idea do you want to share with the community, to light a fire within us? What’s exciting in your world?

Please register to attend and buy one of our great T-shirts, designed by Josh Nagy, by October 13. After that, if we haven’t sold out, tickets will be available, but T-shirts won’t. And I hope you’ll sign up to do a talk about something that gets you excited. Together, we’ll make Barcamp Saskatoon one fabulous unconference.

– Kari, on behalf of the Barcamp Saskatoon 2012 team

Once we have a few speakers lined up we’ll generate a list so you know what to look forward to! Remember, there are no real predetermined talks – we just ask that you sign up before so we know how many talks to plan for and some general categories. We will create the day’s schedule on the spot at 12:30.

Find out what BarCamp is (and isn’t).
Register and buy your T-shirt.
Sign up to speak.
Help us out by sponsoring.

Note that tickets are still free, but T-shirts are $10, and are a required part of the early-bird ticket registration. Show your support for our T-shirt supplier, the local and fabulous HardPressed.

A big thanks to BarCamp Saskatoon 2012’s logo designer, Josh Nagy (@SansKern). Nice work!

If you have questions or ideas for BarCamp, feel free to contact us.

More information will come out shortly about sponsoring part of the event or doing a talk, so stay tuned.

BarCamp Saskatoon 2011 Schedule

If you were there you know it was good.

If you weren’t, you might be wondering what you missed.

• An amazing venue
• gorgeous t-shirts
• refreshments – including pizza and beer
• people who love technology with a giant thirst for information
• people who love technology with the gift of knowledge to share
• old acquaintances reunited and new friends made.

Designed by Allan Dowdeswell, printed by Hardpressed, worn by Kim Schmidt

With the investment of our local business community we got a chance to improve and to do a lot things that weren’t possible in the past, including:

• A new website, domain transfer and free professional hosting
• mobile website
• professional t-shirt design and printing/other swag
• professional sign design
• professional blogging and social media
• food/drink
• donation to charity (Movember)
• more focused admin and organization
• chair rental/delivery.

Ryan & Chris toast to a successful talk

It’s humbling to see the result of the efforts of our organizing committee and supporters and participants. On a shoestring, we put on a damn good event for 200+ people. And we can do this because it takes more than money to have a BarCamp. It takes people who are interested in building something good where there wasn’t anything before. Every contribution, every bit of advice, every topic, speaker and every attendee are what makes BarCamp a success. The takeaways include a fabulous memory, learning and inspiration from our peers, getting to know each other better, and a fun day with people who get you.

20 XL Pizzas consumed in 20 minutes

As a special bonus this year we had $200 left over to contribute to Movember. With lots of fabulous and fledgling moustaches at the event, this was obviously an appropriate place to put our extra sponsorship funds.

Someone asked about having a BarCamp in Regina and I say, “DO IT #yqr!”. BarCamps in Saskatchewan should be more frequent and they can happen anytime, anywhere. Anyone can do a bit of planning and get the ball rolling. BarCamp is owned by the participants so it’s success or failure never rides on one person, but on everyone involved.

BarCamp Saskatoon 2011

There are a few rules to abide by to ensure that your camp is in-line with the expected framework, but the BarCamp wiki and Wikipedia can help you with that.

BarCamp Saskatoon is a valuable part of our technology and business industry, and after 7 years we’ve built a tighter, friendlier community through it. It’s an event where everyone is welcome to speak and learn in an environment that is not only inspiring, but also has the potential to expand through the initiative of it’s participants.

See you next year… if not before!

A few things you should know about:

1. BarCamp Saskatoon has a mobile site. It’s a micro-site: a new product from VendAsta, about which I hope they’ll do a talk at BarCamp (hint, hint). Our mobile site currently lists speakers, supporters, and the #barcampyxe twitter feed, and it includes a QR code to download. On Saturday, it will also include speaker profiles and supporting talk materials, which will be accessible via QR codes at BarCamp.
2. We will be holding a Lightning Reaction Revenger tournament. If, like me, you have no idea what Lightning Reaction Revenger is, watch this video and picture yourself winning/losing repeatedly. Four players, four electrified posts. Buzz in too early: zap! Buzz in too late: zap! I am so in. You must sign up on the wiki to enter.
3. If you bring a non-perishable food item to BarCamp, we will donate it to the Salvation Army of Saskatoon.

As always, a huge thank you to all our sponsors! They are good folk, and they believe in you, the technical community of Saskatoon.