March 15, 2014
How hard can it be - organising a conference # Setup a CfP, select a few talks, publish a schedule, book a venue, sell a few tickets - have fun: Essentially all it takes to organise a conference, isn’t it? In theory maybe - in practice - not so much. Without scaring you away from running your own here’s my experience with setting up Berlin Buzzwords (after two years of running the Berlin Hadoop Get Together, putting up a NoSQL half day meetup).
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February 13, 2014
Berlin Buzzwords - Associated Events # Back in 2011 I had a weird idea: Berlin Buzzwords as a core event kicks off on Sunday evening with a Barcamp but closes on Tuesday evening. There’s way too little time to meet with all the interesting people. On the other hand the organising team really was all tired on Tuesday evening, so just adding another day at the end wasn’t really an option.
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May 7, 2013
How to get your submission accepted at Berlin Buzzwords # Disclaimer: Intentionally posting on my private blog - these are my own criteria, not general advice from the review committee.
Berlin Buzzwords is in it’s fourth year. Probably the most tedious task of all is having to select talks to make it into the final schedule. With roughly 120 submissions and roughly 30 slots to fill the result is that three quarters of all submissions have to be rejected.
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May 31, 2012
Preparation done - clock is ticking # The clock is ticking - only one more weekend to go before Berlin Buzzwords opens its doors for the main conference (check out the Wiki for the Sunday evening Barcamp and the Sunday Movie Hackday). Looking forward to an amazing week with awesome speakers and great attendees.
One word of warning before: Given all the buzz around that conference as of now until mid-next week I won’t take any major decisions, most likely I won’t be able to follow through with any additional organisation, probably I won’t remember everyone I meet on-site.
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May 15, 2012
Presentation shortening # In an effort to make more room for more talks in our schedule for this year’s Berlin Buzzwords we’ve asked quite a few people to shorten their presentation from 40min down to 20min. The thought behind it is to not only give more people a chance to talk on their work but also have those shorter talks focused down to the absolute essential information for people to learn.
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May 1, 2012
Traveling to Berlin in June? Update: No airport changes! # Update: Seems like there won’t be any airport changes for Berlin Buzzwords: German article at Tagesspiegel on postponing airport opening.
If you are planning to travel to Berlin in June – e.g. to attend Berlin Buzzwords – note that there is a major change to airports happening on June 2nd:
Saturday, June 2nd will be the last day, both Schönefeld Airport (SXF) as well as Tegel Airport (TXL) are going to be open.
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April 30, 2012
Berlin Buzzwords Schedule online - book your ticket now # As of beginning of last week the Berlin Buzzwords schedule is online. The Program Committee has completed reviewing all submissions and set up the schedule containing a great lineup of speakers for this years Berlin Buzzwords program. Among the speakers we have Leslie Hawthorn (Red Hat), Alex Lloyd (Google), Michael Busch (Twitter) as well as Nicolas Spiegelberg (Facebook). Checkout our program in the online schedule.
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April 18, 2012
Music in Berlin early June # A little bit of inspiration on what to do the weekend before and after Buzzwords in Berlin:
Ballet in June at the Staatsballett Berlin
Concerts in June at <a href=“ http://www.konzerthaus.de/programm/?datetimeAnf=1338501600&datetimeEnd=1341093600&id_language=1&month=6&year=2012"
Konzerthaus Berlin
Opera in June at Staatsoper Berlin
Opera in June at Deutsche Oper Berlin
Concerts in June at the Philharmoniker Berlin
Opera in June at Komische Oper Berlin
Theater (German-only, sorry, but open-air) at Hexenkessel Hoftheater
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April 17, 2012
Berlin Buzzwords scheduling - behind the scenes # Since roughly a week the Berlin Buzzwords schedule is available online. Tickets are still available at the regular rate - make sure to book your ticket now - you’ve got another three weeks to purchase tickets at the regular rate, last minute rate will up the prize by another 100 Euros starting May 20th.
I thought it might be interesting to share some background on how Berlin Buzzwords scheduling worked out this year.
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January 15, 2012
Reasons for you to visit Berlin Buzzwords # I’ve heard of several people who are not quite sure yet whether they should visit Berlin Buzzwords or not - in particular when having to travel far and cross 9 time zones to attend. My general recommendation is to plan to spend some more days in Europe. The conference is conveniently scheduled on Monday and Tuesday which gives you one weekend before to explore the city and the whole week afterwards to go and see more either in the city or around.
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