With a day left for the next premier open source unconference of India, it is a very difficult task to contain the excitement i am experiencing. This OSScamp will be a a very unique experience than what it has been in the past. OSScamp Delhi March 2009 is an experimental social sandbox that should bring together the community even further and really extend a foot forward towards being a true unconference. A lot of the participants, especially the regular participants, will find something very different than what they are expecting; the new faces will have a time to roll – it is now left to be seen if that takes the community forward or not.
The experiment has been multi-fold. Firstly, there was no active promotion of the event, unlike the earlier times. Then, the platform is more flexible than the past and spontaneity at the event is encouraged. Also, the event is going to be plainer than the past – absolutely no blings this time – not even an attempt to blind anyone by the bling.
A simple highlight of this experiment is that the camp has not been actively promoted. Other than a few announcements in certain mailing lists and submission to a few event directories (the same way as it was being done in the past) no promotional activity was undertaken. Instead, the onus was taken by the community and what followed was a good viral campaign where many community members became ambassadors of the event spreading the word far and wide.
We were also joined by a very active set of Media Partners – YourStory.in, IndiBlogger.in, and DelhiLive.com, who then provided impetus to this viral campaign by taking it a step further. Linux For You will be covering the event in print and so would be Mid-Day and CXO Today.
Linked In, Facebook and OSScamp.in were the only places where event registrations were taking place. And the registrations have been trickling in steadily. The current figures are around 204 who have registered (with a slight overlap of about 20) and another 63 that will be registering. And then we have the final day of registrations still left. Not to forget people who will straight away apparate at the venue. 300+ is a safe number of registrations. What is now left to be seen is how well that translates into actual numbers. Last OSScamp Delhi (September 2008) saw a participation of 150 people. This event will certainly be a step further.
Another surprising aspect of this experiment has been the drastic change in its composition of participants. Earlier camps used to see a lot of start ups and open source companies walking to the camp. This time around, in addition to these, a lot of bigger heads have turned this way. Some of these biggies include: SAP Labs, Genpact, PortWise, Sapient, Alcatel Lucent, CNN, Evalueserve, HCL, IBM, TCS, and Sun. What I am really interested in seeing now is how these biggies will contribute to the event and the community.
The composition of the individuals has also changed. Past camps have seen a lot of students and developers as their campers. They used to be the major chunk of participants. This time round a lot of new sections have entered into the race and the percentage of composition has grown to be more or less similar. Students and Developers have now grown into: Students, Developers, Project Managers, System Analysts, Journalists, Technical Writers, Technology Consultants, System Architects, CXOs, Designers and Web/User-Experience Engineers. It will be interesting to see how these distinct groups interact together in the social sandbox OSScamp Delhi will be.
I used the word social sandbox, because that’s what this camp is going to be. We have really worked at removing the structures (even the minuscule ones) that were present in the past camps. The event might still take place the old way – sessions based, or the participants may come up with something completely unique. It is now, completely, their prerogative. The emphasis is on spontaneity – At the Venue, In Real-Time. I was having a discussion with Daksh Sharma about this social sandbox and though he found the idea interesting, he was also sceptical about how much it would work. I just hope it works, or else some interventions might be required.
Another aspect of this experiment is that the event is going to be very plain. Pure and sweet Technology. Just that. Take a platform of purely open source technology and throw in a bunch of passionate individuals – it makes a pretty sight. Or it will, so I hope. This time there will be no goodies (you are free to bring and distribute some, if its in the spirit of open source and not business-oriented) and there will be no pomp – a minimalistic affair, where everything that is essential is present. We did not even approach potential sponsors, for there was almost nothing that needed sponsorship – other than lunch, of course.
The venue for the event is IIT Delhi (Lecture Theater 1, Block 3) and has been provided for by LUG@IITD. The LT also has a wifi (again something that was virtually absent in the past camps), so don’t forget to bring your wifi-enabled devices and don’t forget to live tweet/blog the event. You can also live blog the event at OSScamp Live!. Create an account there, if you’d be using it. When You do live tweet the event, use the hashtag #osscamp to aggregate your tweets.
All in all, OSScamp Delhi March 2009 will be a bold step forward towards a truer unconference. What is now left to be seen is how true is the translation of the design into being.
The event is free for all, so don’t forget to bring as many people with you as possible. If by some chance you still haven’t registered for the camp, do so here: http://osscamp.in/node/130/signup (you will need to have an user account on OSScamp.in first). You might want to view and rate the listed talks at: http://osscamp.in/category/talk-camp/osscamp-delhi-march-2009 or perhaps add a talk at: http://osscamp.in/node/add/talk. Do spread the word and talk about us. When you do, tag us osscamp.
And be there!
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