confplans

Proto.in decided to give their website a facelift. Check the feedback thread in the volunteers list. The new website makes a good attempt at explaining in a single sentence that “Proto.in is a Support Platform For The Indian Startup Community”, which is a shift from ‘just the event’ face of it (the web page title, at this moment, is “Proto.in | The Startup Event”, which probably will change appropriately). Do chip in the thread and provide feedback.

BarCamp Kerela 5 is right around the corner – this coming weekend – 3rd May 2009. Check out the official discussion group, the website, and specifically the venue information if you’re traveling. And in case you’re not up for consuming information the standard way, an interesting blog post about the event is here.

Proto.in 6th Edition: 25th July 2009
BarCampKerela 5: 3rd May 2009

confplans barcamp, barcampkerela, BCK5, proto.in, protodotin

Thanks to @swaroopch for the nudge. ConfPlans is back.

To Camp or Not To Camp (at this time): Ritika Sanghi posted intention to organize the next BarCampDelhi this coming July. The community welcomed the new enthusiastic volunteer organizer, though there were mixed responses on the timing of BCD7. A quick poll count (in the thread) favored end-July / early-August time. The volunteers have shared a worksheet here targ, discussing venue and arrangement options, so chime in if you are willing to contribute.

Proto.In Pune (PIP): Proto.in announced dates for its next edition, to be held in Pune. 25th July it is, and the nominations for startup product showcase open from 25th April 2009. Things have been moving on this front, see an update in the volunteers list here.

BarCampDelhi 7: Dates to be finalized
Proto.in 6th Edition: 25th July 2009

confplans barcamp, barcampdelhi, bcd7, delhi, proto.in, proto6, pune

Self-explanatory title.

So, what’s going on today?

Yahoo! Open Hack India 2009: Bangalore

GNUnify ‘09: Pune

Startup Saturday ‘Feb 09: Delhi, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Mumbai

Proto.in Saturday Chat: Online

(from resist.in…)

confplans hackday, hackdayindia, proto.in, protodotin, startupsaturday

freed.in, the conference for freedom in technology and software, has published the first cut of the proposed talks at its next edition scheduled for 20, 21 Feb 2009. You can view the list here. The talk abstracts are also up, in the blog posts.

The venue information has been put up in one of the tabs (Note to freed.in: people tend to look at the top banner itself for venue information; a little snippet in the graphics might not hurt) – freed.in 2009 will take place at School of Life Sciences in JNU, Delhi. People from outside Delhi are expected to pour in for this conference, as before.

freed.in: 21, 22 Feb 2009, Delhi

confplans delhi, freed.in, talks list

WordCamp India, the first ever WordCamp in India, has chosen a place. It happens to be none other than the Platinum sponsor of the conference – Adobe Systems. The conference will take place on 21, 22 Feb 2009 at Adobe’s Noida campus.

With an impressive agenda for the target audience, the list mentions “Surprise guest – one of the top 100 influential bloggers by CNET” delivering the keynote. Matt Mullenweg is going to be there, and the right now, the registrations are open. The conference is calling out for speakers and sponsors too, so there is still time to contribute if you haven’t decided yet. Registrations close 16th Feb, as per the event registrations page. The registrations (at the time of this writing) require offline payment; it remains to be seen if this process becomes hectic for the contact points listed covering Delhi, Noida, and Gurgaon.

WordCamp India: 21, 22 Feb 2009

confplans delhi, noida, registrations, sponsorships, wordcamp, wordcampindia

MozillaCamp Delhi, the conference that was planned, sponsored, and organized in a jiffy (from the perspective of someone following the mailing list and the tweets), concluded today. While the interesting parts of the conference planning included a good number of media partners, and the decision to hold the conference on a Tuesday (while most conferences pick Fridays or weekends), the coverage on twitter made sure people not around still felt around. The conference had also planned to broadcast it live on air.mozilla.com using HTML 5 <video> tag support in the yet-unreleased FireFox 3.1.

While official blogging partners, blogadda, did a fabulous job at tweeting (like they did at Proto.in, and won the live-tweeting contest), i.t.magazine chipped in with very good coverage too (and also promoted their mobile carrier while they were at it )

The tweets from the event did satisfy a lot of remote-follower curiosity, right from covering the tidbits about Mozilla strategy, and FireFox features, to the web-collaborative editor, Bespin.

Are live tweets the same to conferences what TV was (and is) to cricket matches?

confplans delhi, mozcampdel, mozillacamp, MozillaCampDelhi, twitter

After the tweets and the blog posts, Proto.in team announced that Pune would be venue of the 6th Edition of the startup conference. The Pune-ousting-Mumbai happening got covered in print media too, which is a plus for the conference, making even those not involved, aware. Planning for the next edition has already began in the mailing list, and by the pace of it, some action would be in soon.

In entrepreneurial-conference-related news, Outlook Business carried a roundup of the “startup promotion events” (sic). It looks at the various efforts, including Proto.in, Headstart, and efforts by TiE and NEN, and spells out constructive criticism with regard to collaboration opposed to rivalry, and reaching out to a wider spectrum of entrepreneurs and Venture capitalists.

confplans headstart, nen, proto.in, proto6, protodotin, pune, tie

Proto.in has been asking people to vote on its next venue city – Pune or Mumbai, and seems to have noted Pune as the popularity vote.

While there have been opinions and requests on the venue city for next Proto.in even before the Jan ‘09 Edition took place (check here for a related blog post and the comments on it), PuneTech has posted a page on ‘Reasons why proto.in should be in Pune’ – a substantial pitch with a number of supporting comments.

No known pitch blog posts for Mumbai yet.

So, Proto.in, where will you be?

confplans mumbai, proto.in, proto6, protodotin, pune

MozillaCamp Delhi was announced today via e-mails to several mailing lists, including BarCampDelhi’s. The event is planned in Delhi on 10 Feb 2009, exact venue still undecided. The mailing list has been setup too, and there’s a marketing brochure posted up here. Seth Bindernagel, Director of Localization efforts at Mozilla, and Arun Ranganathan, Standards Evangelist at Mozilla are expected at the MozillaCamp.

Poster iterations are on in the mailing list, so there’s still time to provide inputs (Hint: do you really like that fox there? Seems to hint at FireFox alone, but Mozilla != FireFox).

The basics are up, and the lookout for venue and sponsors is on.

confplans delhi, mozillacamp, MozillaCampDelhi

Now that Proto.in 5th Edition in Bangalore is over, a quick look at the twitter strategy at the conference. The tag ‘protodotin’ (one of the two recommended tags to tweet at/about the conference – ‘protodotin’ and ‘proto5′) became a hot twitter trend during the two days of the conference. While the reasons include, of course, great conference action, and enthusiastic tweeting crowd, a couple of points to be noted by conference planners:

1. Explicitly call out for people to blog, tweet, or post to flickr. This will only help, and Proto.in did this in the event blog.
2. Make sure people can tweet right from the word Go. If people can’t tweet at the time of the inauguration keynote, the enthusiasm might die down. Although there have been tweets about congested wifi access at Proto.in, the access was nevertheless still there, on time, and enough to tweet well.
3. Let people know their tweets won’t be lost. Proto.in had a big screen outside the hall that showed live tweets posted by the crowd with tags ‘protodotin’ or ‘proto5′. People often stood in front of the screen and read through. A great way to let tweeters know “someone might be looking at your tweet right now.”
4. Incentivise twittering. Proto.in had announced giveaways (iPod Shuffles) for best twitter/blog/flickr coverage (judged by the giveaway sponsors). Such incentives bring the gaming-like fun part to the process, and would itself keep some people interested in twittering long after others have tired down.

Overall, something upcoming (un) conferences can incorporate well, and do one step better.

confplans bangalore, proto5, protodotin, twitter