Changing it up at Angle Bracket

by Clark Sell Posted on February 9, 2012

Since day one when Pat and I started planning things, we’ve wanted to incorporate the real world. A number of ideas went back and forth but I guess we I just couldn’t see the forest through the trees I guess.

Last week, I was complaining to Scott Seely about trying to get MidwestGeeks.net off the ground when he slapped me upside the head with, "why not do it at Angle Bracket"?

Yea no kidding, there’s the real world.

What’s MidwestGeeks.net? Well right now it’s just an http 503. My plan for MidwestGeeks.net was to build a website that was a collection of all the happenings from around the Midwest. That’s User Groups, People, Events, News, and so on. The goal wasn’t to replace anything out there already but rather point people to everything that is out there and help support the broader community. ( fwiw, I am thinking sprout core )

Our first Angle Bracket meeting was a big success and we want to continue building upon it but our core principals won’t change. Introduce a new web topic every month, pair up, code it, and share with each other. Learn the web together.

Now we’re going to also add the "real world" part into the mix. Let’s build out http://MidwestGeeks.net. For example ( assuming the base site already existed ) this months topic is storage. We could add a feature to MidwestGeeks that enabled a client side profile, maybe something like a list of your favorite user groups.

For the people who want to work on the site, have at it, those who want to work on something from work, or just play around, that is still expected and welcomed.

What happens when MidwestGeeks.net is done? Easy, we will just find something else.

Hope to see you at Angle Bracket.

Posted in AngleBracket, User Groups | 1 Comment

The That Conference dates you care about…

by Clark Sell Posted on February 9, 2012

I just wanted to take a brief moment and list out a few of the important upcoming dates, that you might care about.

 

April 2nd ( Monday )

  • Call for speakers opens. We will have a signup form on http://thatConference.com where you will be enter the appropriate information.

April 16th ( Monday )

  • Call for speakers closes. Yes that means you have two weeks to get your abstracts in, but there is plenty of prep time.

 

{ feel free to bribe the organizers here. j/k }

 

May 1st ( Tuesday )

  • That Conference will announce the speaker lineup.

May 16th ( Wednesday )

  • Ticket registration opens at 8:13 am cst.

 

We’re all developers, you know what happens when there isn’t a date out there.  If your planning on submitting a session abstract, start getting those bad boys ready.

Be creative and think different.

Posted in thatConference | 2 Comments

Booking your stay for That Conference

by Clark Sell Posted on February 8, 2012

This might sound a bit premature given That Conference is in August, but you can actually book your hotel stay now. At first this may seem a bit backwards but given the conference takes place in August, I want to make sure people have amply time plan their summers and book their rooms.

 

We have a block of rooms at a discounted rate of $169.00, when making a reservation make sure you refer them the block name: “That Conference” or Booking ID: “20532”. You can do that either online or via phone:

 

Resort Address:

Kalahari Resort ( on the map )

1305 Kalahari Drive

Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin 53965

 

a note from the past for the future –

One of the goals of mine as we are planning That Conference is to provide transparency into the process, a peek behind the curtain if you will. Maybe your trying to plan something too, and hopefully this provided you one ounce of help.

Posted in thatConference | Leave a comment

You have a voice @ That Conference

by Clark Sell Posted on February 7, 2012

While there is a business side of running a conference this is a community conference first and foremost. We want your involvement, we want your feedback, we want your validation, we want your help! We do not, and will not work in a box. For me, one of the best part of a community conferences are all the other activities that happen around the conference itself. For me ( and I think a few others too ) the conference has already started. We’re building stuff now, getting together, planning, and of course like good developers adding scope creep.

So, how do you get involved? Let me break down just a few of the major ways.

Email – As simple as it may sound, one of the best ways to provide feedback or just chat with us is via good ole email. You can reach the board members at contact@thatConference.com and we are pretty good at responding within a day or so. Got an idea, want to make a comment, or better yet compliment us; hit us on email.

Google Groups – If you like email but want to collaborate with your peers, there’s a group for that. While small at the moment some of the conversation has been really helpful, while others is just informational. Unlike email, it’s archived and involves the community around it. I often throw out ideas to help me better understand and shape my own thinking. You will find us here: http://groups.google.com/group/thatconference

Volunteer – You just flat want to help. Great, we need a lot of that too. We have another group setup at thatConferenceStaff.groups.live.com. There is an awesome group of people already signed up but we need more. I coordinate all of the broader planning through that. If your interested in helping, just sign up.

Twitter – Of course we’re on Twitter. Follow us, retweet, reach out, I try to watch the stream pretty closely, but after all it’s twitter and it gets always from you at times.

Facebook – Like us baby!!! I’ll admit it, I’m not the best with Facebook. We have a Facebook Fan Page at http://www.facebook.com/ThatConference.

WebSite Badges – This is currently in development and should be on our site for download in the next couple of weeks. Our awesome designers at Drifting Creatives are doing whatever bad ass designers do to make awesome pixels. This is a great way to easily show your support.

Sponsorship – Not to be understated our sponsors are very important to our overall success. You can find more about our sponsorship and our thoughts around it here: http://csell.net/2012/02/06/that-conference-call-for-sponsors/.

Lastly, help spread the word – Look we only know who we know. This is a community conference for the entire community. Last week on twitter a few guys said, are PHP guys welcome? HELL YES, and everyone else too. Our only stipulation is, we’re wrapping everything around Web, Mobile and Cloud. Pretty hard not to fit something in those buckets.

This is my war cry. Do not hesitate in getting involved. Regardless of the contribution, they’re all IMPORTANT. Please don’t assume, we all have day jobs too.

 

a note from the past for the future –

One of the goals of mine as we are planning That Conference is to provide transparency into the process, a peek behind the curtain if you will. Maybe your trying to plan something too, and hopefully this provided you one ounce of help.

Posted in Events, thatConference | Leave a comment

That Conference, Call For Sponsors

by Clark Sell Posted on February 6, 2012

This past week That Conference hit another major milestone, seeking sponsorship.

Well over a year ago Scott and I we’re sitting in the local pub and dreamed up what we now know as That Conference. There has been a lot of work to date just getting things off the ground. Regardless, I think it’s important to celebrate major milestones and involving sponsors partners is clearly a huge one for us.

That Conference will not be successful without the support of our partners. Every partner I’ve talked to, I have asked them to be creative, "Think Different" ( thanks Apple ), help us help you make it a gigantic win for both. Don’t be afraid to ask, or present us with something different. We don’t want partners who just sit in the corner behind a table. We want partners who want to be engaged and part of the overall conference experience, partners who want to stand out making That Conference the best conference and conference experience in the Midwest.

But, we need your help too. Help us spread the word, make an introduction, suggest someone, feel free to involve us. We cannot do it alone, nor do we want too. So far we’ve meet a lot of great partners and we’ve dug up a few new folks but we’re just getting started.

All of our sponsorship information can be found at: http://thatconference.com/Home/Sponsorship. Help spread the word, and feel free to reach out.

That Conference is a great new opportunity to do something different.

a note from the past for the future –

One of the goals of mine as we are planning That Conference is to provide transparency into the process, a peek behind the curtain if you will. Maybe your trying to plan something too, and hopefully this provided you one ounce of help.

Posted in Events, thatConference | Tagged , | 1 Comment