the 200ok weblog

BarCampSydney 4 has just been announced for the 15th of November. For details, head on over to BarCampSydney | BarCampSydney 4 - Let’s do it!!.

Labels: barcamp, barcampsydney, barcampsydney4

BarCampSydney is coming up again! BarCampSydney3 will be on 5th and 6th April (Saturday and Sunday) at the Roundhouse at UNSW Kensington.

If you haven't BarCamped before, it's a freeform conference. The agenda, speaker list etc is all decided on the fly by the people who are there on the day. It's inspiring, it's fun, it can be a pretty intense day of ideas and discussion. In short, it's geek heaven.

It has nothing to do with bars, although it does usually end up in the pub.

If you're planning to go, head on over to the BarCampSydney3 signup page. Note that the wiki password is at the bottom of the login page, if you get prompted.

Labels: barcamp, barcampsydney, barcampsydney3

We've just finished a session at BarCamp Sydney. I rocked up to see an empty board, so I proposed To hack code, first hack people.... The idea is that often it's not the code that creates barriers to success, it's the people involved. Perhaps they're resisting, perhaps they're not engaging with the process or they simply can't express what they want to achieve with technology.

Here's my take on some points the group came up with...

• Don't hack code without a reason - find what the people want first, sort out the goals.
• Be open to being wrong - if you push your agenda, you may discover that there's a good reason not to go down a certain path. Don't be so engrossed in your own agenda that you become inflexible.
• If someone is resisting an idea or change, first understand why they are resisting. They may have an excellent reason, or they may simply be scared, or they may just need to understand the idea better.
• To hack code, you must be able to empathise with people
• Coders/geeks need to take their clients/users best interests to heart
• Make people feel safe. Build trust with them, build rapport, then start working. People are often afraid that they're paying for something that won't do what they want.
• Doctors need a good bedside manner, geeks need their own version - webside manner?
• It is our responsibility to make things work, not the user's responsibility.
• We must demystify technology - tell people what it will do, not how it's coded.
• Simplify, don't dumb down.
• Don't build for "everyone", build for your specific target market.
• Geeks... we cannot avoid people! Get over it!

Labels: barcamp, barcampsydney, sydney