Fireside Chat afterglow

It's Thursday today, which means a week has already gone by since our first Fireside Chat. For those who haven't found out yet, I've posted some pictures on Flickr, and uploaded a presentation to Slideshare. They're embedded below this post.

First, the format. Seth Gottlieb did a one-hour presentation on his findings from the Open Source Java CMS report. That went well, and was a good warming-up exercise for the participants. The setting was as intimate and cosy as possible, with a live fireside (albeit an electronic one) and a sofa for full effect.

Next, we had two small (30') discussion rounds on a number of topics I had prepared. The group was divided in four sub-groups and they each had a quick tour-de-table of introducing themselves to each other. After each round, each group had to bring forward a presenter highlighting what had been said in a two-minute presentation with Marc and me serving as the flipchart secretary. Thereafter, topics were swapped between groups.

That facilitated discussion went really well, as the master of ceremonies I had great pains in tearing the groups away from their discussion table. Everyone wanted to carry on, though obviously time was limited. The fact we had two consecutive rounds was a good idea as well: it left some room for expanding on a given subject or picking up a statement from the previous group.

The topics were:

• local open source: what is happening and what could be happening on the local open source scene in Belgium
• content management in  a webservices world
• core technology in content management
• standards in content management

Second, there's was a definitive "let's do this again" feeling at the end of the event. That, and the recent launch of GhentValley.be - a (LinkedIn) network for professionals hailing from or working in the Ghent area, is making me really happy these days. The success of these (unconnected) network events shows there's definitive room for such events in our area, and it's a great energy-boost for our day-to-day work.

Outside the fireside chat event, we took the opportunity of Seth being here to showcase new Daisy work and projects to him, and we had a nice time concluding his stay at the Amadeus - one of Ghent's better known sparerib restaurants. That, and perfect weather to show Seth around Ghent, were a recipe for a great one-and-a-half day of semi-vacation. :-)

I have some ideas about next editions I'll post in another blog. In the mean time, I'll be distributing Seth's presentation to the participants. Thanks a lot everyone to be there!

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