oxfordgeeknights

May is suddenly a busy month for geek socialising, with at least three events in my calendar. The monthly Oxford Drupal Users Group (OxDUG) meetup is this Wednesday: I very sneakily volunteered Garrett Coakley to talk about the recent soft launch of the new WDC website. I can't wait to hear about that; also, if time permits then I'm happy to share my recent drush sup exploits with the group.

The Wednesday after (May 8) is Oxford Geek Night #31. Digital artist Seb Lee-Delisle and frontend expert Jake Smith have very kindly agreed to come and speak about their respective projects; they're accompanied as usual by a host of local volunteer "microslot" talks on all manner of subjects. As usual, there'll be time in between the talks to socialise, drink and chat upstairs in the Jericho. And also as usual, I'm organizing it, so I'll definitely be there!

Finally, May 18 sees the return this year of OpenTech, the practically free-to-attend London-based conference on novel approaches to enabling technology, user experience and transparency in democracy. The Government Digital Service and Raspberry Pi project are out in force in this year's schedule, and hearing about those alone is worth the £5 (five pounds!) entry fee. Anyway, when I've gone along in previous years, I've found that pretty much every project discussed has been worth hearing about, with a fascinating depth of social importance and relevance coupled with complex and interesting technologies. And I'm not just saying that because apparently they quoted me on their blog.

Lots on this month, then, but hopefully I'll be able to fit it all in: you should try to as well! And if you do spot me at any of them, please do come and say hi; or tweet me first if you'd rather.

Once again, I presented and helped organize a great Oxford Geek Night last Wednesday. The keynote talks were amazing, and both about trains. Trains, APIs and laser scanning: how good is that?

I did a microslot talk, as well as trying to hold the night together. It was on how you can turn Kindles into literacy, for those who might get a Kindle this Christmas and are feeling charitably inclined on St Stephen's Day. You can download slides and listen to the audio already, which is great.

If I don't blog beforehand - and it's unlikely that I will, let's be honest - have a great Christmas, won't you?

It's already been over two months since the last Oxford Geek Night. Because everyone was away for holidays and then for the conference season, and if you also add a dash of minor illness into the mixture, we've been holding off organising the next OGN until we were ready to get back into the swing of it.

Now, the wait is over. Oxford Geek Nights #19 will be on Wednesday, 1 December 2010. Put it in your diaries now! (We're also planning OGN20 for some time in late January or early February 2011: exact date to be confirmed soon.)

Because we've had chance to catch our breath, two major things have happened. The first is that we've already got two brilliant keynote talks confirmed for OGN19. Leila Johnston, self-styled punk broadcaster, co-presenter of the Shift Run Stop podcast and published author, will be talking about Making things fast. We also have David Caruana and Florian Müller from Alfresco to talk about the OASIS standard on making content management systems interoperable. That means an international standard on how CMS-authored sites can talk to each other.

The second major change to Oxford Geek Nights is that Wes West and Jonny Grum are joining me as co-planners and helping to share the burden. That should mean that OGN tech will be more reliable and OGN planning more robust, and each night itself should hang together that little bit more, because we can all pitch in where necessary. Thanks to Wes and Jonny for joining the existing team of Nick Burch (wifi), Neal Todd (video) and me.

Incidentally, as always: we need microslot volunteers! Do you think you could speak to a roomful of geeks for five minutes on some topic close to your heart? If so, submit your microslot proposal at http://bit.ly/ogn-microslot . See? We've even got a new dedicated microslot URL. We're so technically advanced these days that we're practically robots from the future.

Incidentally, we'd like to thank everyone who submitted feedback recently: we got an unprecedented response, with dozens and dozens of intelligent responses. Just what you'd expect from Oxford's smart, engaged geek crowd. But because of time pressures we've not yet been able to plough through all of that data; so we've decided to prioritize planning OGN19, but hope to incorporate some of your thoughts into the OGNs soon.

OGN19, then. December 1. Leave your chocolate advent calendars at home and come along to the Jericho Tavern.

Following last week's great news from the Guardian Open Platform about sponsoring the two remaining Oxford Geek Nights, there's more great news for the Oxford Geek community, as Apress and Friends of ED have also agreed to sponsor OGN14 and OGN15 with books a-plenty.

We try to always have a book raffle at the end of each Oxford Geek Night, where anyone who's stuck a business card in our magic business-card box gets a chance to win one of several books donated by a generous sponsor. So thanks for Apress for stepping up to the crease and fielding a whole over of books in our direction for OGN14: we're guaranteed a great selection of books for local geeks, and another great reason for coming along to OGN14. How can you not?

After much discussion and chewing of metaphorical pencils, the Guardian Open Platform have very kindly confirmed sponsorship for Oxford Geek Nights, for the rest of 2009! That means drinks will be courtesy of the Open Platform at both Oxford Geek Nights 14 and 15, which I think you'll agree is great news. Even better news is that regular sponsors Torchbox and Moo are on board as well, so Oxford Geek Nights will continue to be free events.

Speaking of which, OGN14 is now less than two weeks away, and my rising panic is tempered only by the fact that I'm already panicking about moving house shortly beforehand. But you shouldn't be panicking; instead, put OGN14 in your diary now, or follow it on Upcoming.

Never let it be said we don't listen. You said you wanted OGNs to start half an hour earlier; they now start half an hour earlier. And now you said you wanted more time to chat at OGNs. Lo! and behold: we've lined up only four microslots for Oxford Geek Night 14, to give you more time to say hi to everyone else.

In fact, after I came back from conference and waded through my emails (sorry for anyone who had to wait forever for a response) I realised that we'd ended up having a surplus of microslots. But I've been mean; I've been cruel; I've been sending a lot of slightly frantic emails. And the end result is that we've probably got a couple of potential microslots already lined up for OGN15 in November anyway. See? Nothing gets wasted at an OGN, especially not good, locally grown ideas and talent. The upshot of all of this is that both keynotes and microslots are confirmed for OGN14.

Speaking of local talent, we've still got spaces on The Pitch, which is our sixty-second open-mic session. You can say whatever you like for a full minute: introduce yourself or your company; advertise a vacancy, product or service; discuss a neat idea you had; announce a conference or local meet-up: anything, really. If you're interested email me at jpstacey.info or find @jpstacey on Twitter.

Otherwise: stick OGN14 in your diary for Wednesday 23 September. That's in just over two weeks' time! Turn up, kick back with a beer, and get ready for some extra full-on chatting. Grr!

Today I got in touch with the venue for Oxford Geek Nights, to confirm rather late in the day that we were definitely on for Oxford Geek Night 13 on Wednesday 15 July. Luckily we are, and we're also now able to book a date for OGN14 which we should hopefully be able to announce on the night of OGN13.

As already announced, the Guardian Open Platform has kindly agreed to sponsor OGN13. Torchbox will with their typically good grace be sponsoring the venue and my time, so that leaves Open Platform free to provide some refreshments. After today's nervous phone conversation, I could do with a drink myself.

Those of you who subscribe to the Oxford Geek Nights Google group hopefully need no reminder that Oxford Geek Night 13 is on Wednesday 15 July. But, more excitingly, the two keynotes are now confirmed.

Bruce Lawson, Open Web Standards evangelist at Opera, is no stranger to Oxford Geek Nights, and covered new developments in accessibility back in OGN10. This time he'll be discussing the forthcoming new standard for hypertext markup, HTML5, and what effects it will have on web-browsing as we know it.

Andrew Walkingshaw, co-founder of Inkling Software, will present the rise (and further rise) of their service for data visualization and storage, Timetric. He'll also be discussing recent work by the Guardian which has incorporated Timetric visualizations, including a recent article on the relative purity of illegal drugs seizures over time.

We still need microslot talks, though, so if you're interested then do volunteer.

It might be a bank holiday for you, but I'm currently putting the final touches to Oxford Geek Night 12, which is this Wednesday. I need to make sure all the speakers have confirmed (most definitely have); get their draft talks onto a pendrive; print out posters and plan timetables; and retrieve and test all our tech and cables; so that the second projector will work fine, and we've got a laptop for everyone to run their talks on: that sort of thing.

Most importantly, from your point of view, I need to sort out equipment for our improved PA setup (following your feedback, very gratefully received, on earlier OGNs). I also need to find and pack the dozen great books donated by Apress, to be given out to randomly selected attendees in our book raffle. We're also looking into drinks sponsorship, and we might have more news on that by Wednesday. And we also still need volunteers for the Pitch, our sixty-second open-mic slots where you can say absolutely anything you want, as long as it's not obscene or about COBOL.... Well, it depends on how obscene.

Come to OGN12, then. There'll be talks and chat and ideas and fun and geeks and nerds and technology and webs and everything you expect from a Geek Night. And if the worst comes to the worst, then you at least have around a one-in-ten chance of leaving with a book worth up to thirty-five pounds, which is not to be sniffed at.

The lineup for OGN12 has been finalized, and we've got another special feature. This time round, our two keynotes have been replaced with an extended superkeynote about messaging technologies---the web, social media, small communications and instant messaging---called The webs are made of messages. This exciting half-hour talk will be presented by three keynote speakers: Alexis Richardson, CEO of Rabbit Technologies; Matt Biddulph, CTO of Dopplr; and Blaine Cook, from BT Osmosoft. Matt's making a welcome return to OGN after keynoting at OGN3.

We've also got a full roster of microslots, which is great news. These are five-minute "lightning" talks that anyone can volunteer for, meant to be a mix of subjects to complement the main keynotes. As usual Oxfordshire's geeks have done us proud with a gloriously mixed bag of talks. Simon Hawkins will discuss Aldi generators and EC2, and Wes West will reveal ALL about sex and the web. Phew! More information on our microslotters is available on the OGN website, and you can still volunteer for a microslot for OGN13 on July 15. They're easy to do: pick something that excites you, or a project you've worked on that you think might be of interest; then talk to a friendly audience for just five minutes with a handful of slides. Submit your microslot and we'll see you on the night.

Finally, OGN12 sees the return of... The Pitch. Sixty seconds to pitch whatever you want: an event, a service, a vacancy, going to the pub, saying hello, or even your mad beatboxing skills. Let us know in advance if you want to pitch something, or just sign up on the night. You will be attending, after all, won't you? Sign up on the Upcoming event if you are, so we know we'll have company.