@madpilot makes

‘Twas the night be for BarCamp

and all through the house

not a creature was stirring

not even my scroll-wheel mouse

See all of you Perth geeks tomorrow

• Apologies to Clement Clarke Moore

Just a quick announcement that Perth BarCamp #1 is finally on!

Where: Central TAFE, 140 Royal St, East Perth WA 6004

When: Saturday 30th June 2007 9am-5pm

Cost: TBA (Probably around $10)

So get your thinking caps on, your laptop batteries charged and read up on what it is all about!

After that, go and register.

Hear ye! Hear ye! Tomorrow is the monthly Port80 meeting, and we have episode III of the Port80 mini-talk franchise. This month, we have Nick Cowie talking about “The mobile web: why you should care” and Bronwen Clune with “Getting copy right”.

I’m looking forward to hearing from both these guys, and you should too! So if you would like to come along, just turn up to the Velvet Lounge in Mt Lawley at about 6pm. There is even free food – what more reason do you need? None. I’ll see you then.

If you think you have what it takes to do a 10 minute presentation to a bunch of like minded web people, then please drop me a line – we are a friendly bunch, who like long walks along the beach and love to meet new members who are willing to share.

What a week in web (well for me anyway). Kay, Miles and myself were invited to a Tuesday morning breakfast put on by the Perth Conference Bureau. The reason? The PCB gives out grants to help start; and to help bid for conferences which is of great interest to us as AWIA committee members. Anyway – the exciting part: There was a $2000 door prize, which can be used by the winner to attend any conference in Australia. Guess who won? That right! Me! So it looks like Web Directions 07 is now on the cards! So thank you Rebecca for inviting us! There will be no doubt much shenanigans to be had.

Tonight was the inaugural Dinner 2.0 , graciously organised by Bronwen of PerthNorg fame. Some how my little ol’ time tracker got enough attention to garner me an invite. It was the who’s who of the Perth Web 2.0 fraternity: Scouta, Buzka and Minti all had representatives come along. It is great to see Perth startups who are getting recognition from the industry, it really gives me hope that our remote little city hasn’t, for once completely missed the boat on something cool.

Good times had by all! Bronwen was taking happy snaps so I’m sure they will appear on Flickr soon enough.

There has been a lot of debate recently about diversity in Web conferences. It is a topic that seems to rear it’s head on a semi-regular basis. As some of the players in the conference circuit have pointed out, maybe we as potential speakers can make the conference organisers’ lives a bit easier.

It is hard to encourage diversity when the pickings are thin – this isn’t to say that the talent from all realms isn’t out there, maybe the people who put on the conferences just haven’t heard about them?

Kevin Lawver has blogged about How to Get to Speak at Web Conferences and point #2 has given the inspiration for this post. Below are a list of some of the events which encourage people to get up and speak about what they love. The list is Australian-centric, mainly because that is the circles I hang with, but I would love to hear of similar things going on around the world (Hint: leave a comment and sell your event!).

So maybe you, oh humble reader, should sign up to a event near you and get your name out there – you never know who might be listening.

1. AWIA Mini-talks – Ok, I have a vested interest in these because I organise them… Currently Perth based, but AWIA is looking to expand them Australian wide. Two speakers get 10 minutes to speak on a topic of their choice on the first Wednesday of the month. Check out the podcasts.
2. WebJam – The WebJam organisers have just announced a second WebJam event which is on in a couple of days. WebJams are even more fasted paced – 16 speakers get three minutes!
3. BarCamps – These “Un-conferences” encourage collaboration and knoledge share – they provde a great opportunity to speak in front of a group and show others what you know. There are BarCamps coming up in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Adelaide next week – Check out the Wiki web site for details of who you can get in contact with.
4. Melbourne (and soon to be Sydney) based Tequp is kind of similar to BarCamps, except they are weekly (And I thought organising monthly meet ups was hard!)
5. The web standards group will often have speakers at their meetings, and I’m sure you local organiser would be more than accommodating.
6. A number of big conferences have experimented with open-mic type session: The Future of Web apps had one, New Zealand based Webstock has it’s 8×5 seminars which looks like it is something similar.

Not a bad list, but I am sure I’ve left off heaps and heaps – I want this list expanded people!!!

Edit: SomeoneMeri Williams has created a wiki aimed at mentoring people that want to get into the speaking biz.