BarCamp Manchester 2

The 7th and 8th of November saw BarCamp Manchester 2 descend on the Contact Theatre. Setfire were proud sponsors of the weekend, and Sam and I popped along to get involved.

The introduction, which culminated in beatboxing with freestyle rapping and an impromptu name-tag swapping session, set the scene nicely for the rest of the weekend.

The waiting boardThe sessions board, Saturday morning

Following the usual rules of Barcamp, everyone who attended was expected to hold a session on any topic they wanted, leading to a schedule including Google Wave, Numeracy, making a good curry, CloneZilla, usability aids for pensioners, Balloons App, the influence that fixed cost contracts have on risk, and loads of other things.

Good curryGood Curry!

The clear highlight for me was the impromtu session in the main auditorium where us geeks were taught how to flirt by Nicole Mathison – Sam volunteered to be a subject for the demonstration, proving to us all what a charmer he is!

Of course, Sam and I both gave sessions of our own. I ran a talk entitled Implementing Agile, where we discussed practical ways to implement Scrum and Kanban in place of existing processes. Sam gave an introduction to Compass.

The Contact Theatre was an excellent choice of venue and it was great to see some of their staff getting stuck in with sessions – even volunteering for Mike Nolan’s ‘Slate My Website’.

All in all, it was a great event, full of useful and unusual ideas as well as some real surprises; all the things that make a Barcamp great. Although there is potential for chaos when running a Barcamp, the fact the event smoothly is a great credit to the team of organisers, Andrew Disley, Tim Dobson, Ian Forrester and their many helpers. See you at the next one!

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