I’m going to simply quote the announcement:
What is Open Coffee? A weekly informal opportunity for the startup
scene (entrepreneurs, developers, and investors) to Percolate,
Discuss, Demo, and Meet!
Where is Open Coffee? Tequila Bookworm. A cozy coffee shop at 512
Queen Street West. Free WiFi and ample parking across the street. We
can even take over the whole 2nd floor!
When is Open Coffee? Every Thursday 10:00am to 12:00pm.
I’m going to try to attend this week’s Open Coffee gathering.
The 13th DemoCamp — the regular show-and-tell gathering for Toronto and area’s developers, businesspeople and creatives — takes place tomorrow at No Regrets Restaurant and Lounge (42 Mowat, not far from the corner of King and Dufferin). The presentations start at 6:30 p.m. and run until about 8:30 p.m., after which the social part of the evening begins.
Here’s the lineup for this DemoCamp:
David Crow has a message for presenters, and I concur:
These presentations should not be sales demos.
Demonstrators should read Value to the Audience.
I am also going to ask that every presenter create a blog post or page on the wiki that is linked from their sign up that answers the following questions:
- Have you attended a previous DemoCamp?
- Who are you? Previous experience, what makes you qualified for us to listen to, etc.
- What does your product do?
- What hard problem, interesting insight, or cool feature will you be demonstrating?
- What are you hoping to get out of presenting?
- What does the community gain by hearing you present?
Basically, we need to improve the quality. I’m thinking of following the Ignite Seattle model of having all presenters submit a PowerPoint presentation. The point is not necessarily to use PowerPoint at DemoCamp, but to make the slides (and we’d limit the number, say 8 slides) available before the talk to the community.
For goodness sake, you have the attention of people in this community for 5 minutes. Make it count. And if I have to sit through a demonstration of a tag cloud or web login form, so help me…
See you there!
Here’s a public service announcement for you gentlemen who are married, engaged, dating or “attached” in some way: this weekend is probably your last window of opportunity to book dinner reservations for Valentine’s Day, which is this Wednesday. Book as soon as possible and stay out of the doghouse. Don’t say I never do you any favours!
If you live in the Accordion City area, the Toronto Life Valentine’s Day Guide 2007 might have some ideas you might want to try.
Nearly forgot about this one: I’ve got a writeup of DemoCamp 12 over at Global Nerdy.
Just a little update on what’s happening with Toronto Transit Camp:
Don’t forget that Toronto Transit Camp takes place this Sunday, February 4th at the Gladstone Hotel between 9:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m.! There’s not cost to attend, but space is limited, so if you haven’t registered yet, do so now.
And on the day after — Monday, February 5th — DemoCamp returns with DemoCamp 12! It takes place at No Regrets and starts at 6:30. Now that we all have a year’s worth of DemoCamps under our collective belts, we’ve made some changes to the format to see if we can’t improve the experience for everyone. Like Toronto Transit Camp, there’s no admission for DemoCamp.
Toronto Transit Camp is a one-day unconference where people of all types who depend on and care about the TTC — designers, transit geeks, bloggers, visual artists, tech geeks and cultural creators — will gather to discuss, collaborate and brainstorm ideas about the transit system we know and, in spite of all its warts, love. Over the day, there’ll be a number of sessions in which you can participate and put forth your ideas for improving both the TTC website and the general TTC experience. All the ideas generated at Toronto Transit Camp will be delivered to the commission for their consideration.
Didn’t you click on the “unconference” link in the paragraph above? Very well, then: consider what normally happens at a session at most conferences — you have a speaker who makes a presentation for anywhere from a half-hour to two hours, after which there may be a few minutes devoted to questions and possibly some time put aside to “break out into discussion groups”. The unconference concept turns this around by making sessions mostly about asking questions and discussion rather than a lecture. In such a setup, the “speaker” is more of a discussion facilitator or moderator. We feel that while the conference structure has value when you want to impart knowledge, we feel that the unconference structure works better for what we want to do: generate ideas, stiumlate discussion and build community.
I don’t blame you for being cynical. The TTC commission has, for the past couple of decades, been old hide-bound Soviet politburo: a bunch of old guys, apparently out of touch with real world needs, making do with increasingly outdated equipment and desperate to maintain the status quo. However, with the installment of the new chair, Ward 18 councillor Adam Giambrone. He’s the youngest-ever ever chair of the TTC — a mere slip of a lad at the age of 29 — and quite receptive to new ideas. So much, in fact, that he put the question to the local blogosphere asking for input into how to improve the TTC’s rather dismal website. Think of it as a TTC experiencing their own version of glasnost, and think of Giambrone as a better-looking Gorby without the pigeon doo-doo or whatever that thing was on his head.
Furthermore, we organizers of this event are pretty persuasive people. We’ve gotten our foot in the door at city events, companies both small and large have offered to sponsor events we hold, and we’re already getting our press coverage for Toronto Transit Camp set up. We understand just what a well-organized, active, open and smart community is capable of, and we have the drive to kick-start it.
Toronto Transit Camp will take place at the Gladstone Hotel (1214 Queen Street West, at Dufferin) on Sunday, February 4th, from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Yes, but the game doesn’t start until 6:30 that evening. Perhaps you can live without seeing the pre-game stuff this year.
It’s free. You’ll probably have to buy your own lunch, but there’s no admission charge for Toronto Transit Camp.
Not at all, my free market friend. The Gladstone Hotel is giving us the space at a big discount, and a number of civic minded companies such as Radiant Core and my employer, Tucows, are sponsoring the event.
The only catch is that we can handle a maximum of 100 attendees. We ask that anyone who attends can be there for the full day and is ready, willing and able to contribute to the discussion.
The Toronto Transit Camp site has all sorts of information about the event and will be updated regularly both before and after the event. Check it out!