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Posted to dev@community.apache.org by Isabel Drost-Fromm <is...@apache.org> on 2014/03/03 10:54:24 UTC
On geeks growing up - wrt. ApacheCon
Hi,
Maybe for this year's ApacheCon this idea is a bit too late - but I thought it makes sense to get the discussion started anyway (maybe it even benefits myself at a later event ;) ):
I don't know about the US tech conferences, the trend I've observed in past years here in Europe is that more and more events are making an effort to be family friendly - in particular the community focused ones. There's events which provide complimentary child day care, conferences with special kids tracks, play and relaxation areas etc. For a more detailed overview see also:
http://blog.isabel-drost.de/posts/on-geeks-growing-up.html
As a side effect, the play areas often are occupied also by "older children" - three years ago I've seen geeks sort the balls in a ballpit at Chaos Communication Congress by colour - working out the most efficient algorithm to do that ;)
For Berlin Buzzwords this year is the first year we are offering day care for children - financially this worked out really well as a local online babysitter service offered professionals in turn for visibility at the event. I'm happy to share experiences after BBuzz is over. I'm also happy to get you in touch with the people behind Chaos Communication Congress, FrOSCon (they even shipped their kids track to another interested conference this year), EuRubyCamp. On the Java side of things Devoxx (biggest EU Java community event) seems to have a similar offering. I have been told that in the US OSCON features a kids track.
Lacking really deep knowledge about the US tech community I can only provide insight from a European perspective - would be great to see ApacheCon drive this trend.
Cheers,
Isabel
Re: On geeks growing up - wrt. ApacheCon
Posted by Rich Bowen <rb...@rcbowen.com>.
On 03/03/2014 02:52 PM, Roman Shaposhnik wrote:
> This sounds like a really good idea! In fact, if there's any chance for us
> to give it a try at ApacheCON EU -- it'll be pretty nice.
>
> Not sure how feasible it is for ApacheCON US, but on a related note:
> I've always wondered about combining my two favorite passtimes:
> ASF and euro boardgames ;-)
>
> Has anybody ever tried open gaming/hacking area at these types of
> conferences? Do these two mix well?
I'm reluctant to add anything else to apachecon na, just because we're
changing so many things already, and our big focus right now is getting
the audience to show up. While I know that good options for kids will
probably result in a bigger audience, we're running this event on a very
compressed timeline and budget, so we should probably wait for EU to add
extra features.
But I definitely want to pursue these ideas and see what we can add in
the future.
--Rich
>
> Thanks,
> Roman.
>
> On Mon, Mar 3, 2014 at 1:54 AM, Isabel Drost-Fromm <is...@apache.org> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Maybe for this year's ApacheCon this idea is a bit too late - but I thought it makes sense to get the discussion started anyway (maybe it even benefits myself at a later event ;) ):
>>
>> I don't know about the US tech conferences, the trend I've observed in past years here in Europe is that more and more events are making an effort to be family friendly - in particular the community focused ones. There's events which provide complimentary child day care, conferences with special kids tracks, play and relaxation areas etc. For a more detailed overview see also:
>>
>> http://blog.isabel-drost.de/posts/on-geeks-growing-up.html
>>
>> As a side effect, the play areas often are occupied also by "older children" - three years ago I've seen geeks sort the balls in a ballpit at Chaos Communication Congress by colour - working out the most efficient algorithm to do that ;)
>>
>> For Berlin Buzzwords this year is the first year we are offering day care for children - financially this worked out really well as a local online babysitter service offered professionals in turn for visibility at the event. I'm happy to share experiences after BBuzz is over. I'm also happy to get you in touch with the people behind Chaos Communication Congress, FrOSCon (they even shipped their kids track to another interested conference this year), EuRubyCamp. On the Java side of things Devoxx (biggest EU Java community event) seems to have a similar offering. I have been told that in the US OSCON features a kids track.
>>
>> Lacking really deep knowledge about the US tech community I can only provide insight from a European perspective - would be great to see ApacheCon drive this trend.
>>
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Isabel
>>
--
Rich Bowen - rbowen@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
Re: On geeks growing up - wrt. ApacheCon
Posted by Isabel Drost-Fromm <is...@apache.org>.
On Mon, Mar 03, 2014 at 11:52:26AM -0800, Roman Shaposhnik wrote:
> Has anybody ever tried open gaming/hacking area at these types of
> conferences? Do these two mix well?
http://events.ccc.de/congress/2004/ ... is where I learnt the rules to play Go - OMG is that really going to be 10 years ago this December? I'm getting old!
The caveat with board games at events is that you need a large enough number of interested people to get by-standers interested and engaged. At the above event there always were a handful of people playing in the evening close to the bar in a chill-out area (= some kind of cosy seating, appropriate music, drinks* on sale), so getting involved was as easy as walking by, watching two people play and getting invited to get an intro.
What is slightly easier to get going is to allow sponsors to bring typical startup equipment: table tennis, foosball table, bean bags etc. (logistics left to the sponsor potentially in turn for a sponsorship package discount, works best with local sponsors who don't ship the stuff over half the continent).
Isabel
* meaning mostly this: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/how-a-german-soda-became-hackers-fuel-of-choice
Re: On geeks growing up - wrt. ApacheCon
Posted by Melissa Warnkin <mi...@yahoo.com>.
tee hee hee....David, that sounds like a challenge to me?!?! :)
________________________________
From: Joe Brockmeier <jz...@zonker.net>
To: dev@community.apache.org
Sent: Tuesday, March 4, 2014 10:02 AM
Subject: Re: On geeks growing up - wrt. ApacheCon
On Tue, Mar 4, 2014, at 09:00 AM, Rich Bowen wrote:
> Also, at LinuxCon in New Orleans they had old-school cabinet video games
> in that space, too.
Big +1 on the cabinet games. Also, if we can get a air hockey table,
David Nalley and I have some unfinished business...
Best,
jzb
--
Joe Brockmeier
jzb@zonker.net
Twitter: @jzb
http://www.dissociatedpress.net/
Re: On geeks growing up - wrt. ApacheCon
Posted by Joe Brockmeier <jz...@zonker.net>.
On Tue, Mar 4, 2014, at 09:00 AM, Rich Bowen wrote:
> Also, at LinuxCon in New Orleans they had old-school cabinet video games
> in that space, too.
Big +1 on the cabinet games. Also, if we can get a air hockey table,
David Nalley and I have some unfinished business...
Best,
jzb
--
Joe Brockmeier
jzb@zonker.net
Twitter: @jzb
http://www.dissociatedpress.net/
Re: On geeks growing up - wrt. ApacheCon
Posted by Rich Bowen <rb...@rcbowen.com>.
On 03/03/2014 02:52 PM, Roman Shaposhnik wrote:
> Has anybody ever tried open gaming/hacking area at these types of
> conferences? Do these two mix well?
By the way, the Linux Foundation (who is doing our US and EU
conferences) have a tradition of having board games and geeky puzzle
games sitting out in the common areas during their events. If you've
ever been to LinuxCon you've probably observed this. It's a great way
for us introverts to strike up a conversation with a stranger.
Also, at LinuxCon in New Orleans they had old-school cabinet video games
in that space, too.
--
Rich Bowen - rbowen@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
Re: On geeks growing up - wrt. ApacheCon
Posted by Roman Shaposhnik <ro...@shaposhnik.org>.
This sounds like a really good idea! In fact, if there's any chance for us
to give it a try at ApacheCON EU -- it'll be pretty nice.
Not sure how feasible it is for ApacheCON US, but on a related note:
I've always wondered about combining my two favorite passtimes:
ASF and euro boardgames ;-)
Has anybody ever tried open gaming/hacking area at these types of
conferences? Do these two mix well?
Thanks,
Roman.
On Mon, Mar 3, 2014 at 1:54 AM, Isabel Drost-Fromm <is...@apache.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Maybe for this year's ApacheCon this idea is a bit too late - but I thought it makes sense to get the discussion started anyway (maybe it even benefits myself at a later event ;) ):
>
> I don't know about the US tech conferences, the trend I've observed in past years here in Europe is that more and more events are making an effort to be family friendly - in particular the community focused ones. There's events which provide complimentary child day care, conferences with special kids tracks, play and relaxation areas etc. For a more detailed overview see also:
>
> http://blog.isabel-drost.de/posts/on-geeks-growing-up.html
>
> As a side effect, the play areas often are occupied also by "older children" - three years ago I've seen geeks sort the balls in a ballpit at Chaos Communication Congress by colour - working out the most efficient algorithm to do that ;)
>
> For Berlin Buzzwords this year is the first year we are offering day care for children - financially this worked out really well as a local online babysitter service offered professionals in turn for visibility at the event. I'm happy to share experiences after BBuzz is over. I'm also happy to get you in touch with the people behind Chaos Communication Congress, FrOSCon (they even shipped their kids track to another interested conference this year), EuRubyCamp. On the Java side of things Devoxx (biggest EU Java community event) seems to have a similar offering. I have been told that in the US OSCON features a kids track.
>
> Lacking really deep knowledge about the US tech community I can only provide insight from a European perspective - would be great to see ApacheCon drive this trend.
>
>
> Cheers,
> Isabel
>
Re: On geeks growing up - wrt. ApacheCon
Posted by Ross Gardler <rg...@opendirective.com>.
yes please!
Ross Gardler (@rgardler)
Senior Technology Evangelist
Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.
A subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation
On 3 March 2014 01:54, Isabel Drost-Fromm <is...@apache.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Maybe for this year's ApacheCon this idea is a bit too late - but I
> thought it makes sense to get the discussion started anyway (maybe it even
> benefits myself at a later event ;) ):
>
> I don't know about the US tech conferences, the trend I've observed in
> past years here in Europe is that more and more events are making an effort
> to be family friendly - in particular the community focused ones. There's
> events which provide complimentary child day care, conferences with special
> kids tracks, play and relaxation areas etc. For a more detailed overview
> see also:
>
> http://blog.isabel-drost.de/posts/on-geeks-growing-up.html
>
> As a side effect, the play areas often are occupied also by "older
> children" - three years ago I've seen geeks sort the balls in a ballpit at
> Chaos Communication Congress by colour - working out the most efficient
> algorithm to do that ;)
>
> For Berlin Buzzwords this year is the first year we are offering day care
> for children - financially this worked out really well as a local online
> babysitter service offered professionals in turn for visibility at the
> event. I'm happy to share experiences after BBuzz is over. I'm also happy
> to get you in touch with the people behind Chaos Communication Congress,
> FrOSCon (they even shipped their kids track to another interested
> conference this year), EuRubyCamp. On the Java side of things Devoxx
> (biggest EU Java community event) seems to have a similar offering. I have
> been told that in the US OSCON features a kids track.
>
> Lacking really deep knowledge about the US tech community I can only
> provide insight from a European perspective - would be great to see
> ApacheCon drive this trend.
>
>
> Cheers,
> Isabel
>
>
Re: On geeks growing up - wrt. ApacheCon
Posted by Isabel Drost-Fromm <is...@apache.org>.
On Mon, Mar 03, 2014 at 09:04:16AM -0500, Rich Bowen wrote:
> Last week I attended SCaLE[...]
I knew this couldn't only be some EU trend - great to hear.
> I'll ask Angela what our options are for Europe.
Awesome - Thanks. Looking forward to her input.
Isabel
Re: On geeks growing up - wrt. ApacheCon
Posted by Rich Bowen <rb...@rcbowen.com>.
On 03/03/2014 04:54 AM, Isabel Drost-Fromm wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Maybe for this year's ApacheCon this idea is a bit too late - but I thought it makes sense to get the discussion started anyway (maybe it even benefits myself at a later event ;) ):
>
> I don't know about the US tech conferences, the trend I've observed in past years here in Europe is that more and more events are making an effort to be family friendly - in particular the community focused ones. There's events which provide complimentary child day care, conferences with special kids tracks, play and relaxation areas etc. For a more detailed overview see also:
>
> http://blog.isabel-drost.de/posts/on-geeks-growing-up.html
>
> As a side effect, the play areas often are occupied also by "older children" - three years ago I've seen geeks sort the balls in a ballpit at Chaos Communication Congress by colour - working out the most efficient algorithm to do that ;)
>
> For Berlin Buzzwords this year is the first year we are offering day care for children - financially this worked out really well as a local online babysitter service offered professionals in turn for visibility at the event. I'm happy to share experiences after BBuzz is over. I'm also happy to get you in touch with the people behind Chaos Communication Congress, FrOSCon (they even shipped their kids track to another interested conference this year), EuRubyCamp. On the Java side of things Devoxx (biggest EU Java community event) seems to have a similar offering. I have been told that in the US OSCON features a kids track.
>
> Lacking really deep knowledge about the US tech community I can only provide insight from a European perspective - would be great to see ApacheCon drive this trend.
Last week I attended SCaLE, where there were lots of activities for
kids, including a game night, and various places around the event where
kids could build things - electronic and otherwise. At Ohio LinuxFest,
there's a kid track of the conference, for older kids who want to learn
stuff about technology. They had programming classes, and sessions about
science, as well as a trip to the science museum down the road.
I remember OSCon having child care years ago, but either they don't do
that any more, or it wasn't as noticeable last year, but they did have
places in the exhibit hall where kids could build thing, use 3d
printers, learn to program, play video games, and a variety of other
things. And I saw a number of families with their smaller kids at the event.
Unfortunately, I probably won't get to bring my kids to an event any
time soon, due to school and other complications, but I'd be very much
in favor of this kind of thing for the younger Apache members.
I'll ask Angela what our options are for Europe.
--
Rich Bowen - rbowen@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
Re: On geeks growing up - wrt. ApacheCon
Posted by Isabel Drost <is...@apache.org>.
On Mon, Mar 03, 2014 at 10:42:11AM -0800, Ted Dunning wrote:
> I have to say one of the most fun conferences I have ever attended was the
> third ALife conference. They had a lego play area for children attending.
> Happily, very few children were there which allowed the rest of us to
> spend many hours building responsive bots. Balancing sticks. Orienting
> responders. Line followers. It was awesome.
:-D One very great event for me was attending a soldering+Arduino workshop by Mitch Altman and Jimmie Rodgers (kits included) - usually targeted at school kids it was attended mostly by software engineers who in their daily life don't do a lot of building boards themselves and enjoyed getting LEDs to blink in all sorts of colours.
Isabel
Re: On geeks growing up - wrt. ApacheCon
Posted by Ted Dunning <te...@gmail.com>.
I have to say one of the most fun conferences I have ever attended was the
third ALife conference. They had a lego play area for children attending.
Happily, very few children were there which allowed the rest of us to
spend many hours building responsive bots. Balancing sticks. Orienting
responders. Line followers. It was awesome.
On Mon, Mar 3, 2014 at 10:11 AM, Isabel Drost-Fromm <is...@apache.org>wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 03, 2014 at 01:51:57PM +0000, Dave Cottlehuber wrote:
> > A number of software / ASF people I know, by virtue of working remotely,
> are also
> > defacto “child handlers” while their partner works in a normal
> face-to-face
> > job. It would be nice to facilitate conference attendees/speakers
> without requiring
> > major family upheaval to take place.
>
> Not everyone involved with ApacheCon (or conferences in general) has kids
> - one thing I've learnt in the past is that there is no better input than
> what parents tell you when it comes to stuff needed/missing. Would be great
> if you could motivate the ASF parents you know to share what would need to
> change to convince them to bring their family (depending on child age and
> other relevant parameters).
>
> One very simple example for illustration: It took me asking parents to
> understand that conference dates actually make a huge difference for people
> with children that go to school: Bringing those to a weekend event is
> trivial. Working days outside of holiday season though is not an option.
> Obvious once you hear it - not quite so obvious if you don't have children
> in that age yourself.
>
>
> Isabel
>
>
Re: On geeks growing up - wrt. ApacheCon
Posted by Isabel Drost-Fromm <is...@apache.org>.
On Mon, Mar 03, 2014 at 01:51:57PM +0000, Dave Cottlehuber wrote:
> A number of software / ASF people I know, by virtue of working remotely, are also
> defacto “child handlers” while their partner works in a normal face-to-face
> job. It would be nice to facilitate conference attendees/speakers without requiring
> major family upheaval to take place.
Not everyone involved with ApacheCon (or conferences in general) has kids - one thing I've learnt in the past is that there is no better input than what parents tell you when it comes to stuff needed/missing. Would be great if you could motivate the ASF parents you know to share what would need to change to convince them to bring their family (depending on child age and other relevant parameters).
One very simple example for illustration: It took me asking parents to understand that conference dates actually make a huge difference for people with children that go to school: Bringing those to a weekend event is trivial. Working days outside of holiday season though is not an option. Obvious once you hear it - not quite so obvious if you don't have children in that age yourself.
Isabel
Re: On geeks growing up - wrt. ApacheCon
Posted by Dave Cottlehuber <dc...@jsonified.com>.
On 03. März 2014 at 13:32:23, jan i (jani@apache.org) wrote:
> On 3 March 2014 10:54, Isabel Drost-Fromm wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > Maybe for this year's ApacheCon this idea is a bit too late - but I
> > thought it makes sense to get the discussion started anyway (maybe it even
> > benefits myself at a later event ;) ):
> >
> > I don't know about the US tech conferences, the trend I've observed in
> > past years here in Europe is that more and more events are making an effort
> > to be family friendly - in particular the community focused ones. There's
> > events which provide complimentary child day care, conferences with special
> > kids tracks, play and relaxation areas etc. For a more detailed overview
> > see also:
> >
> > http://blog.isabel-drost.de/posts/on-geeks-growing-up.html
> >
> > As a side effect, the play areas often are occupied also by "older
> > children" - three years ago I've seen geeks sort the balls in a ballpit at
> > Chaos Communication Congress by colour - working out the most efficient
> > algorithm to do that ;)
> >
> > For Berlin Buzzwords this year is the first year we are offering day care
> > for children - financially this worked out really well as a local online
> > babysitter service offered professionals in turn for visibility at the
> > event. I'm happy to share experiences after BBuzz is over. I'm also happy
> > to get you in touch with the people behind Chaos Communication Congress,
> > FrOSCon (they even shipped their kids track to another interested
> > conference this year), EuRubyCamp. On the Java side of things Devoxx
> > (biggest EU Java community event) seems to have a similar offering. I have
> > been told that in the US OSCON features a kids track.
> >
> > Lacking really deep knowledge about the US tech community I can only
> > provide insight from a European perspective - would be great to see
> > ApacheCon drive this trend.
> >
> Apachecon will be in europe later this year, so the european perspective is
> equally important.
>
> I think the idea is good. The entrance fee to AC is pretty high, but maybe
> we could combine your idea with the idea of having a day (or half) where we
> in general open up, and give spouses, our kids etc a chance to see why we
> like spending soo much time with apache...meet some real people.
>
> rgds
> jan I.
Great post Isabel thank-you!
A number of software / ASF people I know, by virtue of working remotely, are also defacto “child handlers” while their partner works in a normal face-to-face job. It would be nice to facilitate conference attendees/speakers without requiring major family upheaval to take place.
--
Dave Cottlehuber
Sent from my PDP11
Re: On geeks growing up - wrt. ApacheCon
Posted by Isabel Drost-Fromm <is...@apache.org>.
On Mon, Mar 03, 2014 at 02:32:10PM +0100, jan i wrote:
> Apachecon will be in europe later this year, so the european perspective is
> equally important.
Great.
> I think the idea is good.
Thanks - it's just that in recent years I've observed more and more conferences become family friendly.
> The entrance fee to AC is pretty high, but maybe
> we could combine your idea with the idea of having a day (or half) where we
> in general open up, and give spouses, our kids etc a chance to see why we
> like spending soo much time with apache...meet some real people.
Keep in mind though that the entrance fee is not the only hurdle. I've tried a few approaches to motivating spouses and kids to attend (offer city tours like FOSDEM does, try to find out whether people would be interested in a play area in advance) - in general people are hesitant to bring their family unless offerings are very clearly communicated (not everyone at Apache is as lucky as myself being married to a hacker who likes Linux kernel development goes a long way to visiting events like Froscon, FOSDEM, LinuxTage etc. together).
One option to advertise non-tech offerings actually can be the ticket form itself: Tickets for kids and non-tech people should cover food and drinks, but should be way lower in prices than general conf admission (on-site this is relatively easy to "enforce" by differently coloured wrist bands). Again there needs to be some incentive/something to do for the family joining - having the conference take place in an interesting location and offering the ticket as hallway/catering ticket is one trivial option...
Isabel
Re: On geeks growing up - wrt. ApacheCon
Posted by jan i <ja...@apache.org>.
On 3 March 2014 10:54, Isabel Drost-Fromm <is...@apache.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Maybe for this year's ApacheCon this idea is a bit too late - but I
> thought it makes sense to get the discussion started anyway (maybe it even
> benefits myself at a later event ;) ):
>
> I don't know about the US tech conferences, the trend I've observed in
> past years here in Europe is that more and more events are making an effort
> to be family friendly - in particular the community focused ones. There's
> events which provide complimentary child day care, conferences with special
> kids tracks, play and relaxation areas etc. For a more detailed overview
> see also:
>
> http://blog.isabel-drost.de/posts/on-geeks-growing-up.html
>
> As a side effect, the play areas often are occupied also by "older
> children" - three years ago I've seen geeks sort the balls in a ballpit at
> Chaos Communication Congress by colour - working out the most efficient
> algorithm to do that ;)
>
> For Berlin Buzzwords this year is the first year we are offering day care
> for children - financially this worked out really well as a local online
> babysitter service offered professionals in turn for visibility at the
> event. I'm happy to share experiences after BBuzz is over. I'm also happy
> to get you in touch with the people behind Chaos Communication Congress,
> FrOSCon (they even shipped their kids track to another interested
> conference this year), EuRubyCamp. On the Java side of things Devoxx
> (biggest EU Java community event) seems to have a similar offering. I have
> been told that in the US OSCON features a kids track.
>
> Lacking really deep knowledge about the US tech community I can only
> provide insight from a European perspective - would be great to see
> ApacheCon drive this trend.
>
Apachecon will be in europe later this year, so the european perspective is
equally important.
I think the idea is good. The entrance fee to AC is pretty high, but maybe
we could combine your idea with the idea of having a day (or half) where we
in general open up, and give spouses, our kids etc a chance to see why we
like spending soo much time with apache...meet some real people.
rgds
jan I.
>
> Cheers,
> Isabel
>
>