So that was Oxford Geek Night 2
The second Oxford Geek Night last night went well and was by all accounts a success. We came across various hiccups in setting up but several totally ingenious solutions and a few friendly geeks later we were all set.
The talks were great, and in my mind they really made the event what it was. So, a big thank you goes out to all the speakers. Also in my list of thanks is our very generous sponsor Torchbox who kindly funded the event, keeping it free for all to attend.
Most of the slides and links from the talks are up online already and the remainder will follow shortly. Also to come soon are the videocasts and podcasts of the event. I'll keep you posted as to when they are ready.
The photos are now up online too. If you are uploading any then the official Flickr tag is 'oxfordgeeknight2'. If you tag them they will appear on the site for the event.
If you were at the event last night you may have noticed two women with fancy video cameras interviewing and filming, they were from BBC Oxford South Today. The media coverage has all been a bit of a surprise really, I guess when it got picked up by the Oxford Mail after the last one everyone else wanted to have an "and finally, geeks leave the house" type story! :)
Interview with BBC Radio Oxford (Wednesday 11th, 11:30):
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(Download Interview)
Oxford Geek Nights on BBC South Today Oxford (Thursday 12th, 18:30)
See high resolution Quicktime version (4.8 MB)
I am really keen to get other people inspired to organise their own, more specialised events. So if anyone wants to start up, say, a JavaScript meet-up, Oxford Pub Standards, Oxford 2.0 or anything really, then that would be absolutely fantastic! I would be happy to help.
I would really love to hear your feedback on Oxford Geek Nights in general and on the last event. I have set up a (optionally anonymous) feedback form, so you can let us know what you enjoyed or how we can improve the next one.
We have set up an announce only email list as a Google Group for Oxford Geek Nights, or you can use our new Atom feed to keep up with news and information.
The Oxford Geek Nights are every two months so watch this space in June/July for the next event!
A great evening. Excellant speakers and a good group of people. Will come again. Well done to all.
Steve - April 13th, 2007 at 7:54 am[...] Organisation and work pressures combined a couple of nights ago to prevent me going to the second Geek Night. By all accounts it was even better than the first, and attracted interest from both BBC Radio Oxford (interview) and BBC South Today (YouTube clip) showed interest this time round. [...]
Graceful Exits » Geeknight #2: “virtual reality and htmls” - April 13th, 2007 at 9:01 amCongratulations on organising what looks to have been an immensely successful event.
Will definitely try and make it up for the next one.
- Neil.
Neil Ford - April 13th, 2007 at 9:21 amIt looks like a great success apart from the few technical glitches at the start.
That BBC news item doesn’t make us nerds look too great though - they would use a clip of someone saying “I don’t watch television.” At least Mr Willison proved that we do have outside interests (even if it did resort to wildlife).
You’ll have to come to a Multipack meeting and advise us on how to organise some formal events with proper presentations.
Si Jobling - April 13th, 2007 at 9:22 amNice one! I’m sorry I couldn’t be there, seems like I left Oxford at just the wrong time :)
I’m constantly disappointed at the media’s insistence on over-emphasising the sterotypes of “geekery.” The word is a journalist’s stumbling block. Maybe it’s a challenge to cover something that’s such an obvious target for mockery and still maintain credibility, but I wonder how long it’ll take for hackneyed pre-conceptions like “geeks don’t like socialising” to go out of fashion.
Sadly, complaining about this online only strengthens the image of a snivelling pedant, rejecting the mainstream from his parent’s basement.
Anyway, you’re doing a great job Natalie, keep it up!
James Wheare - April 13th, 2007 at 9:55 amExcellent work Nat! Media angle is annoying and predictable - but definitely worth it for the coverage.
Jason Cartwright - April 13th, 2007 at 10:04 am[...] Natalie Downe » Blog Archive » So that was Oxford Geek Night 2 Sounds like Nat organised another STORMING Oxford Geek Night. Reckon it’s just a matter of time before someone realises she makes an amazing events organiser and offers her a conference job. She even got the BBC covering the event!! (tags: geeks oxford oxfordgeeknights nataliedowne amazing events bbc news niceone) [...]
Meriblog: Meri Williams’ Weblog » links for 2007-04-13 - April 14th, 2007 at 4:48 pm[...] We really want to try and get more involved in the UK tech scene as there seems to have been a few good events happening lately. I must admit that I am really bad at finding out about the various events until it is too late, like this one here in Oxford - Oxford Geek Nights. What is the best resource to check for UK web events? Thanks. [...]
Nuclear Sledgehammer » Blog Archive » Embracing the UK tech scene - April 22nd, 2007 at 2:11 pmNuclear Sledgehammer: here’s one local event.
Adrian Walmsley - April 24th, 2007 at 2:14 pmif anyone wants to come to another session on Ruby on Rails, we have a talk at BCS Oxfordshire branch this Thursday night (26 April).
Details at http://www.oxon.bcs.org/program2006-7.htm#Apr
All welcome - members and non-members.
Did he say MEGABYTE? Geek!
Robert Andrews - April 27th, 2007 at 11:16 am