Baa Camp - Kiwi FOO

In February of 2007 I was privileged to be amongst the chosen few in IT circles in NZ to be invited to the inaugural Kiwi version of the annual O'Reilly Foo-camp. A brain-storming, tech related, start-up promoting, networking, socialising, knowledge-sharing fest, organised by Nathan Torkington and Russell Brown and hosted at Mahurangi college in Warkworth, north of Auckland.

The attendee list was a real potpouri of folks, people with vision and ideas, time and money, policies and problems, requirements and solutions, science and culture, structure and chaos.

One of the things that impressed me most about the gathering wasn't the frighteningly huge cranial capability in the room, it was more the diversity of backgrounds which meant conversations were so much more open and balanced than they generally are at a typical boffins conference.

Instead of the usual technology or project related defensive clustering that often happens at these kinda events, you tended to have a random collection of minds, each member of a group having a valuable contribution from their own field of expertise, and although I despise the word its tempting to sneak "synergistic" into a summary of the result.

Was interesting to see how much interest and charged energy there was in telecommunications infrastructure issues like local-loop unbundling and peering. The latter a firm focus for most and was a clear message for David Cunliffe to take back to Wellington. I was personally very impressed with Cunliffe's apparent grasp of the relevant issues, and was similarly impressed with Judith Tizard's contributions in not only talks of relevance to her responsibilities but her general enthusiasm and interaction in discussions that were not in her area of expertise.

Another refreshing aspect of the foo-style event is avenues for exercising the hacker spirit in other ways than though software. There were the lads from Vivid Performance Group demonstrating their glow-suits, the group of soldering-iron armed engineers building a PC remote controlled model car, the Wok Fi evangelist had me grinning ear-to-ear with thoughts of my own neighbourhood network, the body modification was disturbing and challenging all at once.

The mix of technology, enthusiasm, dedication, expertise, hardware-hacking, music playing and the conversational lubrication courtesy of the bar in HQ made for an amazingly motivating, energising experience that anyone lucky enough to be invited to in future would be a fool to turn down. Bloody well done !!!

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Wiki Menu: FrontPage Edit References Delete Changes Formatting Index Tags:	Baa Camp - Kiwi FOO In February of 2007 I was privileged to be amongst the chosen few in IT circles in NZ to be invited to the inaugural Kiwi version of the annual O'Reilly Foo-camp. A brain-storming, tech related, start-up promoting, networking, socialising, knowledge-sharing fest, organised by Nathan Torkington and Russell Brown and hosted at Mahurangi college in Warkworth, north of Auckland. The attendee list was a real potpouri of folks, people with vision and ideas, time and money, policies and problems, requirements and solutions, science and culture, structure and chaos. One of the things that impressed me most about the gathering wasn't the frighteningly huge cranial capability in the room, it was more the diversity of backgrounds which meant conversations were so much more open and balanced than they generally are at a typical boffins conference. Instead of the usual technology or project related defensive clustering that often happens at these kinda events, you tended to have a random collection of minds, each member of a group having a valuable contribution from their own field of expertise, and although I despise the word its tempting to sneak "synergistic" into a summary of the result. Was interesting to see how much interest and charged energy there was in telecommunications infrastructure issues like local-loop unbundling and peering. The latter a firm focus for most and was a clear message for David Cunliffe to take back to Wellington. I was personally very impressed with Cunliffe's apparent grasp of the relevant issues, and was similarly impressed with Judith Tizard's contributions in not only talks of relevance to her responsibilities but her general enthusiasm and interaction in discussions that were not in her area of expertise. Another refreshing aspect of the foo-style event is avenues for exercising the hacker spirit in other ways than though software. There were the lads from Vivid Performance Group demonstrating their glow-suits, the group of soldering-iron armed engineers building a PC remote controlled model car, the Wok Fi evangelist had me grinning ear-to-ear with thoughts of my own neighbourhood network, the body modification was disturbing and challenging all at once. The mix of technology, enthusiasm, dedication, expertise, hardware-hacking, music playing and the conversational lubrication courtesy of the bar in HQ made for an amazingly motivating, energising experience that anyone lucky enough to be invited to in future would be a fool to turn down. Bloody well done !!! People met or heard Allison Randal David Cunliffe http://www.misshapenfeatures.com/ Mark Cubey Rod Drury Rachel Cunliffe Philip Lindsay Richard Hulse - Radio New Zealand Sam Vilain Richard Simpson Judith Tizard Chris Di Bona Micahel Hodgson Blogging the Event Juha Saarinen Vincent Heeringa Russell Brown Fish, Chips and other Takeways Internet Peering In NZ Copyright Amendment Bill Offline Content Caching activity w Firefox 3, local app interconnectedness Xero See Also: Web Related Conferences \| Notes Index
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