AgileScotland 2006 Challenge

Hi everyone,

 

Are you up for the AgileScotland 2006 Challenge?  

 

This is your chance to meet with and learn from some of the key players in the Agile World - for free, here in Scotland.  And to build something for the international Agile community.

 

The problem:  We've been very lucky to get such high quality - both local and international - speakers at AgileScotland in our 3 short years, but one of the difficulties with organising AgileScotland events is our geographic isolation.  For instance, I first approached Tom Gilb about running a session about a year ago and we've been too-ing and fro-ing since then to organise something.  It is only happening this week because Tom is already in Edinburgh giving a tutorial at a conference.  I have similar conversations going on with a half dozen "big names" but the hard bit - with no budget - is getting them physically in Scotland.

 

The idea: I have an idea which - if we can pull it off - will not only get us even more world class speakers but will also help get Scotland firmly placed at the centre of the Agile world map. 

 

The idea is to (a) invite "big name" speakers to run presentations - webinars, if you like - to an AgileScotland audience over the Internet (b) record the presentations and q&a, then (c) publish video and audio recordings of the sessions online as a free resource to the rest of the Agile world.

 

You can find an excellent and free archive of business webinars here: http://main.placeware.com/demos/web_seminar_archive.cfm .  I'd like to build something just like this but with Agile content - and at no (or very low) cost.  The placeware (now ms live meeting) service costs thousands of dollars each year ... so we'll just need to build our own.  That's where the challenge comes in ...

 

The easy part is getting speakers.  I already have 3 very big name speakers who've agreed to run a session for us - and since they are the only 3 I've asked, I've no worries about getting more.  If we can setup a successful online archive then the free publicity for the speakers is a big incentive too.  I'm also confident that we can find sponsorship for things such as hosting if we need to.  If we can prove the concept works then I'd like to broaden this out so were doing something Scotland, not just AgileScotland - there are a lot of clever people in this country so why not let the world know about it.

 

The Challenge is building a technical solution that'll allow us to (a) view and listen to presentations delivered from across the word while sitting comfortably in Scotland (or anywhere in the world, long term) (b) record the presentations - including the local audience interaction (c) edit out the crap and (d) host the solution so that the rest of the world can access it for free. 

 

To kick this off we need between 4 and 10 active participants.  We need people with technical skills, a little spare time, and the commitment to actively engage in the challenge.  I'd especially like thoughts about how we will mange this.

 

Join me at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASChallenge or  ASChallenge-subscribe@yahoogroups.com if you'd like to be involved.  Please ... :)

 

Look forward to hearing from you,

 

Clarke Ching

www.clarkeching.com