Open Space Code NL

We (Kees and Mendelt) had a great day today. And I'm very glad, looking at the evaluations, that we weren't the only ones who had fun :-)

So thanks Imtech for organizing the location and especially the lunch! And thanks to DotNed, SDN, dotnetevents.nl and agileholland for promoting the day.

You can look at some of the pictures of the day here, dont worry, we got rid of all the embarrasing ones.

Resources and code produced today can be found here although most of the day was spent talking, so there's not much code there. Timmy Kokke did update the Wiki with some links to cool Silverlight 3 stuff from one of the sessions.

Here are some articles and blog-posts written about Open Space Code that might interest you. If you want your blog-post listed here please send us an email.

• http://mendeltsiebenga.com/post/Looking-back-at-Open-Space.aspx
• http://agilesoftwaredevelopment.com/blog/mendelt/open-space-agile-way-meeting 

And for people who didn't get enough open space we recomend the Devnology open space meeting next month.

We're looking forward to see all of you tomorrow. Here's some last minute information.

You're welcome from 8.30. You can find the address and route information here: http://openspacecode.nl/page/Date-and-Location.aspx

If you're later than 10.30 please give me (Mendelt Siebenga) a call. It might be that the door will be locked by then. But we'll put a sign on the door with my phone number.

Next saturday is the big day. So it's about time to think about what we're going to do.

First of all what do we expect of you?

Nothing much actually. Just show up and bring a laptop with the following

• Visual Studio (preferably version 2008) but if you want to show off 2010 that's ok too
• We'll use the Google Code repository to share any code produced during the day.The easiest way to access this is using Tortoise SVN
• We have wireless and wired internet available. Wired internet isn't available in all rooms though so it would be nice if your laptop supports this.

The schedule for the day looks like this:

But this is of course all just an indication. Afterwards Kees and me are going to get something to eat in Den Haag and you're of course welcome to join us.

For people who are unfamilliar with the open space format, here's a short breakdown of what the day is going to look like.

Arrival, coffee/tea

We'll start the day with some coffee or tea, it's saturday and 8.30 is very, very early so we need some time to acclimatize and for people to arrive.

Introduction, planning and voting

It's time to get to business. First everyone will get a chance to introduce themselves. We'll get a talk from Imtech, our sponsor but we promise we'll keep this as short as possible:-) After that we'll start planning. We have two sets of five parallel sessions planned. What we're going to do during those sessions is up to you, the participants. Everyone can propose a session by writing down the subject of the session on a sticky note and by putting it up on the planning board. If there are more sessions than slots people can vote on what sessions they'd like to attend, sessions that overlap can be merged and eventually we should have 10 sessions for the day.

Anyone can propose a session about any (programming related) subject, if you want to tell everyone about your experiences programming in Iron Python you can propose a session where you give a presentation but if you just want to learn more about Silverlight you can propose a session too. Sessions are supposed to be interactive so you don't have to be a subject matter expert to propose a session.

Sessions

This is where the fun starts. Everyone goes to the sessions they want to attend and code. Oh, there is only one rule though. If you're not enjoying the session you're attending and you're not contributing or learning you should go to a different session and try to contribute there.

 I hope to see you all this saturday!

With almost three more weeks to go the attendee list was getting a bit full with only four more free places. So we decided to see if we could get some more space for the open space code day, luckilly we managed to get two more rooms and enough lunch to accomodate 20 more people. So keep those applications coming! And keep your eyes on this site! We'll put up a program for the open space code day soon!

The figures so far:

• 26 attendees
• 4 Microsoft MVP's
• 1 Published writer
• loads of code and fun

Open Space Code NL is coming up in less than a month, about time for an update.

Some great people have signed up. The 30 places we have filled up quickly and some fantastic people have signed up. There's a whole load of MVP's coming. Loads of bloggers, writers and of course developers. We have 6 more places available so sign up quickly! Although if the waiting list is long enough we can probably persuade Imtech ICT, our sponsor, to make a few more places available.

One of the biggest surprises was an email we got from Alan Dean, he's been organizing the Open Space Coding Day in London and Alt.Net.UK conferences. Actually he's the one we stole the idea from and he'll be coming over here to attend our event. We don't know if he's coming to check if we don't mess up or if he just wants to have a fun day with some dutch developers but anyway. Welcome Alan!

In order to avoid misunderstandings about the sign-up process and confirmation emails I put up a page on how to sign up here

Please expect some updates over here over the next few weeks. You can subscribe to the RSS feed of this blog to keep up to date or follow us on twitter at @openspacecodenl

We have some good news!

Imtech ICT kindly offered to host the event in their offices in Den Haag. They also offered to arrange lunch. That means we have the final go-ahead for the event.

You can find the adress and other information here: Date and Location

If you want to sign up for the event you can still send us email at info@openspacecode.nl. Admission is of course free thanks to Imtech but places are limited. Sign up early! We will be keeping a waiting list so please let us know if you want to cancel so we can give your place to someone else.

We proudly present the dutch open space code day 2009.

Open space code is an hands-on programming event following the open space format. The concept was stolen (with permission) from http://openspacecode.com/uk/london/2009-01-31.xhtml. Open space events are more free form than normal conferences, with all the interactivity found in coffee breaks at normal conferences but a lot more content. Mostly they're just great fun.

We'll be focussing on .Net but Java, Python or Ruby programmers who want to learn about .Net or show us their language of choice are of course more than welcome. The focus is on learning, language wars will be actively discouraged.

We want you to bring your brains and a laptop. We'll bring space, internet access and lunch.

The target date is Saturday the 6th of June 2009 from 9.00 to 17.30, the target location is in Den Haag near the A4 but hasn't been confirmed yet.

Announcements will be posted on this website and on our twitter account @openspacecodenl

For more information you can contact us through info@openspacecode.nl or you can contact Kees or Mendelt on twitter.

If you want to attend send us email at info@openspacecode.nl. Please send us your name and email, and let us know how you want to be mentioned in the list of attendees, if you don't you'll be listed as anonymous. Of course we won't list your email, but you can give us other information.

Attendance is limited so don't hesistate to sign up early. We'll be keeping a list of attendees. All attendees will be contacted before the event to confirm their attendance. We'll also be keeping a waiting list so don't hesistate to sign up even when the list is full.