Another month, another DemoCamp. It was good to see some friends I haven’t seen in far too long. Here are some reviews: Rohan, Greg, Martin, Ryan McKegney, Craig Borysowitch, James. Jennifer McCarthy remarks on the skewed gender balance. (When are we going to fix that?)
I’m giving DemoCamp11 a thumbs-up overall. My reviews, thoughts on Powerpoint, on DemoCamp as JobFair and Retooling after the jump…
Technorati Tags: democamp, torcamp
AutoSSL, Sander Smith, Jennifer Paton Smith:
Some rough points, a resilient recovery and….Powerpoint? I was glad that somebody did it, because the no Powerpoint rule is one always in need of refinement. As for the technology – I saw a feature, but I wasn’t seeing a product. But I was glad that somebody brought along some hardware other than a MacBook Pro. Thank you!
Selenium, as demoed by Andrew Reynolds:
An open-source testing framework. Andrew’s not associated with the project, but I think he did a great job bringing something to the community. The IDE and Firefox extension to write and record test scripts was very cool.
My Studio Assistant, Arnold Wytenburg:
Arnold Wytenburg is somebody I worked with as a TA for Business of Software to U of T, who knows more about more subjects than is probably healthy. Arnold bravely got up in front of a crowd heavily skewed towards Content Management gurus to demo a prototype for a a solution geared towards the needs of the fine artist/photographer or artisan. He got the predictable question, “Why not just do this in a customized install of Drupal?” but I’m glad he went up there to show what real people are looking for. I think the best thing for the idea is if Arnold brought together a couple of artist-networks/artist-run centres and some top-notch CMS and usability kids to do it as a project, picking the best latest tools and with a keen eye for design and usability. Ryan noted that for a product intended for artists, the interface was heavy on text.
Firestoker, Jevon Macdonald and Tom Purves:
I think some reviewers are being a bit unfair to Jevon and Tom, considering where they are in the development cycle for their platform. I think some context on that would have framed the demo better. I also felt that there was some discomfort with having the b5media guys in the room and a lot of competitor tools in the community including blogmatrix and bryght. Again, the room is brimming with CMS know-everything skeptics. The important part of what Jevon and Tom are doing with Firestoker is addressing head-on the organizational barriers to implementation. It’s not about the tech, it’s about the context and the use behind the firewall. That point was clearer at the recent Enterprise 2.0 thing they did.
Design Bibliography, Sunir Shah:
Sunir showed a wiki-based bibliography tool, which looked great. I really like the combination of unstructured wiki and structured bibliographic data. It would be interesting to see how students outside CS might use this. Get a group of MA students in International Relations and see how open they might be to sharing their references with one another. I suspect that petty jealousies and competitiveness would interfere with the openness that Sunir envisions.
On the Question of Powerpoint:
I was speaking with Greg after Demo about the whole Powerpoint rule. His point was that no-Powerpoint makes it difficult to show anything without a UI or where the UI is trivial. He has a very good point. As it is today, everything tends to get judged like a web app. And is showing a series of static web pages any better? I think the spirit of no Powerpoint is that the crowd will “thumbs-down” anything that is a series of slides with bullets with no working meat and gears. But if somebody’s showing something that does a given process faster than ever before, the UI is trivial and you need something else to give context to what we’re seeing. I would encourage people to use images, diagrams or maps to give that context whenever there is something happening inside that black box. I suggest that instead of “no-Powerpoint”, the rule be changed to “no slide shows or marketing pitches” to avoid the traditional 10-slide pitch someone would do for a VC group. I think that keeps to the spirit of the rule without excluding whole categories of interesting work.
On DemoCamp as JobFair:
Unlike Ryan, I think it is totally legit for students to show their stuff and make themselves available to possible employers and for employers to say they’re hiring. If a demo is worth doing, it’s worth doing regardless if somebody’s looking for investment or a next gig. An announcement about who’s hiring keeps the community heart pumping with cash. DemoCamp is a marketplace for talent AND ideas. That’s part of why it has succeeded thus far. That’s why it is important.
On Retooling:
I heard some rumblings of concern that any retooling should be discussed openly and transparently, in keeping with the spirit and values of the community. I’m sure that David, Jay, Sutha, Bryce and others will be sharing their thoughts via blogs and the TorCamp email group.
Hey, you’re right that democamp is a marketplace for talent and ideas. What I was trying to suggest, was that perhaps another event could grow out of the current structure that could better serve those looking for people and those looking for work. When a student (or anyone else) has something cool to show, they should by all means, but I would rather see projects demoed that people are passionate about than a project someone created to audition for a job. That can be hard to determine of course, but if there was a more formal jobfair type event for this community, perhaps people wouldn’t feel like they had to demo just to meet people who might hire them. I’m not entirely sure if that’s how some people feel, but I’m hoping my post at least opens a dialogue. As I said on my blog, I’m just thinking out loud.
[...] And finally, the Design Bibliography is a wiki for graduate students to share notes on their paper and book readings. This is the demo everyone but me seemed to like: I’m suspicios about its real chances. I think it may not fly for the same reason My Studio Assistant will –I don’t think the Design Bibliography understands its users very well. Mark Kuznicki points out that outside of Computer Science “petty jealousies and competitiveness would interfere with the openness that Sunir envisions”. It’s true, but I can testify it happens within Computer Science as well, and not just because of competitiveness: I’d be willing to share my reading list (and there are already services offering this), but the thought of sharing my frank views on the papers I read makes me queasy. [...]
[...] Clarification about the Un-jobfair/Democamp The suggestions in my last post haven’t proven to be particularly popular (see trackbacks on that story), but I think my tone may have been misinterpreted. As I posted in the comments on the Remarkk blog: What I was trying to suggest, was that perhaps another event could grow out of the current structure that could better serve those looking for people and those looking for work. When a student (or anyone else) has something cool to show, they should by all means, but I would rather see projects demoed that people are passionate about than a project someone created to audition for a job. That can be hard to determine of course, but if there was a more formal jobfair type event for this community, perhaps people wouldn’t feel like they had to demo just to meet people who might hire them. I’m not entirely sure if that’s how some people feel, but I’m hoping my post at least opens a dialogue. [...]
Ryan, your clarification makes sense to me. Feel like initiating JobCamp? What would it look like? How would it be organized and how would employers and talent be drawn together? An interesting idea…