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You pretty much sold me with #4. Nothing says tons o' fun like beer and dangerous water sports. -Mike On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 9:40 AM, Edward M. Corrado <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Hi Code4lib, > > Over on his One Big Library blog, Dan Chudnov had a list of conferences he > liked to attend > (http://onebiglibrary.net/story/conferences-id-like-to-attend). One of them, > was the idea of a PowerlessCamp. Dan defined a PowerlessCamp as having "no > power. no lights, no laptops, no projectors. no wifi, no video or audio > recording or amplification. Held outside maybe, in daylight. Maybe with some > picnic benches. " > > I think it is a brilliant idea and that way too many people, including me, > rely on electricity and technology to get things done at conferences and > while I understand why, I think the idea of a PowerlessCamp is great. > > I think that doing something like this one weekend during the summer would > be great. I can see it done at a campground that offers group sites. People > could come and camp (or just for the day). Other activities such as canoing > or hiking could be easily arranged. Since a camp ground is cheaper then a > hotel, it wouldn't be relatively cheap to attend (once you got there, > anyway). > > I'm not sure where you would hold it. I'm thinking it would be tough to do > it at a campground that is close to a major airport so people would probably > need to drive/carpool. Because of this, turnout would probably be best if it > was within a 5 or 6 hour drive of major population areas. If Code4Lib was > going to get involved with something like this, that would most likely mean > somewhere in the northeast since we have major populations of Code4Libers in > DC, Philly, New York, Eastern Canada and other locations throughout the > northeast US - maybe in Pennsylvania or New York? Anyway, I'm wondering how > much interest there is in this. With this in mind, I created a Web site > (actually a blog) at http://powerlesscamp.org/ for people to comment on if > they wish. If I get enough interest, I'll expand the site to include a wiki > and more. > > So, here is my very loose proposal off the top of my head (copied from my > blog): . > > 1. We have the first PowerlessCamp over a weekend during Summer 2009 > 2. It be roughly organized around the same topics as Code4Lib (software, > mostly open source, for libraries) > 3. It be located at a campground somewhere in the northeast. > 4. The location should be somewhere that offers a variety of outdoor > activities so we can do stuff besides the conference. Activities could > include tubing, canoing, rafting, hiking, mountain biking, drinking beer. > 5. Cell phones are allowed for emergency use only > 6. Anyone who takes out a laptop will have it thrown in the camp fire :-) > 7. I am a little unsure about how to do formal proposals, but I think we > should have some form of proposal system though. My guess is the conference > will be small enough that everyone that wants will get a chance to talk. We > just have to figure out the schedule in advance so we know how much time to > allot to everyone > > Schedule wise, I'm thinking the conference "sessions" part would be on a > Saturday, maybe starting around 11 AM or noon and going until about 6:00 or > 7:00 PM when we start up the grills and campfire and open up a beer or two. > We can make arrangements for group outdoor activities on Friday and Sunday. > With maybe the first of us to arrive on Thursday evening and the last of us > leaving Monday morning. Obviously, even though the conference in this > scenario would only be on Saturday, a bunch of library geeks hanging out > together won't be able to last long without talking about geeky stuff, so > the whole event would be educational. > > What do you all think? If you are interested in the concept, either e-mail > or post something to the blog. I'm not sold on any wedded ideas above, > besides that doing this at some point would be great so please share your > ideas on how you think it would be good to organize such an event. I'm not > expecting 200 people to show up, but if we could get 10-20 people to come > out and support it, I'd be thrilled. > > Edward >