Interested in a Boston Python Conference?

August 1st, 2009 § 28 comments

i-beans-kidney-can.jpgNow that activ­ity is spin­ning up around pycon 2010 and the suc­cess of PyOhio, an idea popped into my head ear­lier today about hold­ing a small (2 day) mini con­fer­ence in the Northeast.

Specif­i­cally, I’m talk­ing about the Boston Area. Boston’s a great town for vis­it­ing and doing some­thing like this (tons of pub­lic tran­sit, etc). Not to men­tion, I live just a bit out­side of it.

The obvi­ous down­side is cost; Boston isn’t a cheap town, so if this nascent idea came to fruition, I’d have to find a great hotel deal, and host­ing space for some­thing like this. And spon­sors, etc.

My ini­tial gut on this is that there might not be enough Python­istas within the NE or dri­ving dis­tance to make some­thing like this truly suc­cess­ful. Which is why I’m post­ing this — how many peo­ple would be inter­ested in attend­ing some­thing like this?

2 days, 45 minute-1 hour talks. If a spon­sor were to step for­ward and offer sprint-space, maybe 1 day of sprint­ing. Depend­ing on the num­ber of talks/attendees, 1 track for sure — 2 if I was to get a land­slide, but no talks within the same tech­no­log­i­cal sphere against one another (e.g. a Django talk at the same time as a Plone talk). Addi­tion­ally, I’d rather have ded­i­cated open space/sprinting space then add an addi­tional talk track even with a ton of response.

Edit to add: Sev­eral peo­ple have men­tioned that they’ve had bet­ter luck with 30–45 minute talk length caps. After some dis­cus­sion last night — sin­gle track would be pre­ferred. There­fore — 30–45 minute talks, sin­gle track. If we could get space, we’d have a ded­i­cated sprint room.

I don’t, how­ever, want to hold this in an edu­ca­tional venue — I’ve become aller­gic to doing things like that due to pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ences. I can always be con­vinced oth­er­wise though, it would have to come from an administrator/coordinator of the school; not a student.

Time­line? 4–5 months after Pycon 2010, which is in Feb­ru­ary — this places it in the June/July time­frame. Wait­ing until after this, say Fall, means stu­dents from MIT/BU/etc would be able to attend, which could mean more expo­sure to peo­ple maybe not as famil­iar with the language.

I’d want Brett Can­non to come too — but only on the con­di­tion he com­plains about some­thing (yes that’s a joke).

So, would you be interested/willing to come. Where would you be trav­el­ing from? Do you like Beer (we have lots)?

In other news, Andrew Kuch­ling has fin­ished a revamp of the Python.org dona­tion page here. You should donate!

  • http://www.drbrett.ca/ Brett C.

    Is it a joke about want­ing me to come, or me hav­ing to com­plain about something? =)

  • http://bitprophet.org/ Jeff Forcier

    I’d be inter­ested, though I’m not pos­i­tive if I’d have time given that I plan to try and make PyCon and don’t have a lot of vaca­tion days to spare. I live in NYC and like beer :)

  • carltii

    Boston is a huge IT town. I’d be sur­prised if there weren’t enough Python­istas in Boston to make a con­fer­ence on their own.

    Doesn’t Doug Napoleone of Pycon fame live in Boston? And all of those MIT stu­dents who are now learn­ing Python instead of LISP.

    I guess rep­u­ta­tions can be deceiving.

    If I could make the time and money, I would go (but I prob­a­bly can’t).

  • doug­napoleone

    I have been qui­etly push­ing PyBoston for some time. I was about to launch it this year (for Octo­ber) but the extended mar­ket crash, work, and some other nas­ti­ness stopped me.

    Octo­ber is the best time for a boston con­fer­ence. The col­leges are in ses­sion (which will be cru­cial) and the tourist sea­son has just ended and there is a major lull in the local hotel business.

    I just made the fatal mis­take of doing another query to check for the avail­abil­ity of pyboston.com, and it was free, but before I could reg­is­ter it it was taken :-(

    I hope that was you and not godaddy doing the nor­mal search squat thing.

    In short, lets do this thing.

  • http://jessenoller.com jnoller

    Nah, I want you to come — you can gripe if you want :)

  • http://jessenoller.com jnoller

    It would need to hap­pen on a week­end for sure

  • http://zzzeek.blogspot.com/ zzzeek

    I think a pyboston would be fun and I’ve always wanted a pycon to be there. I’d drive up from NYC.

  • http://jessenoller.com jnoller

    I live here (Boston-area, that is). While yes; this is a big IT town, and there are a fair num­ber of Python­istas here — Doug Napoleone, James Tauber, Myself and oth­ers — the point is to not put on just another user­group meet­ing, but some­thing big­ger and more in a PyCon-vein that can attract peo­ple from a wider area (maybe from across the pond if I can con­vince Michael Foord to come).

  • http://jessenoller.com jnoller

    Yeah, I reg­is­tered pyboston.com before I made the post (to pre­vent squat­ting). I was debat­ing whether or not to do it in the fall — it really is a bet­ter time for the Boston area; but not nec­es­sar­ily for peo­ple trav­el­ing who are also students.

    That being said, PyCon in feb­ru­ary isn’t good for stu­dents either, so it’s prob­a­bly not as much of an issue if we pick a week­end, and do the “sprint day” on a monday.

    I’d say punt on this year — the econ­omy is still weak, and you’re knee deep in PyCon prep for 2010, I’ve started a new job, etc. Next year though, if we start discussing/planning it now is def­i­nitely doable.

  • Anony­mous

    I should note that boston.pycon.org will always be avail­able, and maybe even a mas­sively pow­er­ful ded­i­cated server from tummy.com ;-)

  • Anony­mous

    I agree 100%, but to get a venue at a good price for Octo­ber 2010, we need to start it going now. Should have been more clear about that.

  • http://jessenoller.com jnoller

    Oh yeah — how I wish we had a metro-ma-python group. Get­ting into cam­bridge sucks rocks.

  • jack­died

    Count me in as a local helper if you decide to go for­ward; I might even be good for a new talk; and I’m def­i­nitely good for a couch (hear that Foord?); actu­ally a guest bed­room /and/ a couch.

    All the small/mid sized con­fer­ences seem to be at Uni­ver­si­ties. I assume because they are cheaper and/or eas­ier to get, and also the right size. We’d need a cham­pion at one of the local schools (there are many schools around here) but unfor­tu­nately we Boston pythoneers seems to be in indus­try, not aca­d­e­mics. Is it Ned Batchelder who orga­nizes the Cam­bridge python group? Whomever it is maybe they could round up a mem­ber who has some local Uni affiliation.

    We’d need a half dozen vol­un­teers to pull it off. You, me, Doug?, Ned?, and a cou­ple oth­ers. We’d also need a kitty to pay for deposits and such, dunno if the PSF would help with that (oth­er­wise the orga­niz­ers would be on the hook). I’m sure Doug has a long list of other must haves and gotchas.

  • http://thok.org/bloggery _Mark_

    Also Boston weather is wretched in the sum­mer (though this year it’s shap­ing up to be *dif­fer­ently* wretched than past years…)

    Ned Batchelder is another noted local python­ista, if you’re look­ing for expe­ri­enced speak­ers (his Whirl­wind C Exten­sions talk at pycon 2009 was very accessible.)

    (I’d cer­tainly attend, and might try to come up with a talk. If you want stu­dents, you prob­a­bly want a T-accessible loca­tion, even if it isn’t downtown…)

  • http://thok.org/bloggery _Mark_

    I’d be up for that too — work­ing in Cam­bridge hasn’t actu­ally been enough to get me to the mee­tups, but some­thing out-of-town might be more doable…

  • http://jessenoller.com jnoller

    I would rather find space in indus­try, rather than a school. I’ve been burned rely­ing on stu­dents for space for things. Not to men­tion, I’d rather have a ded­i­cated space then need to com­pete with stu­dent on cam­pus, etc.

    Yeah, Ned Batchelder does the boston pug — but again, and maybe I’ll just get outvoted/outprepped on this — I’m really leery on rely­ing on a local school to be reli­able; pro­fes­sional; and ded­i­cated. Funny thing about com­pa­nies offer­ing space, is that they usu­ally are, and places you pay for almost always are.

    And I fig­ured you’d be in :)

  • http://jessenoller.com jnoller

    Yeah; but I also reg’ed pyboston.com. I PWN IT

  • http://jessenoller.com jnoller

    I work 45 min­utes out­side of cam­bridge, and live an hour out­side. I have a hard time explain­ing to the wife why I’m going to be MIA well past the kiddo’s bedtime.

  • http://jessenoller.com jnoller

    Hey, hot isn’t wretched. It’s bet­ter than snow. And I know Ned, there’s a hand­ful of peo­ple in the imme­di­ate area I’d hit up for talks. There’s about a dozen com­pa­nies I’d hit up for spon­sor­ship, even if that means I have to walk around dressed in a suit cov­ered in spon­sor­ships like Nascar :)

  • http://jessenoller.com jnoller

    Oh yeah, Doug and I talked a bit last night — my idea is not orig­i­nal, come to find out — doug’s thought about it a bit. We’re going to keep chew­ing on it as a side-thread due to PyCon 2010 and other stuff eclips­ing every­thing else right now.

  • http://dgou.myopenid.com/ D’gou

    I’d come in from West­ern PA, though it’d have to be at least two days to make the dri­ving over­head tol­er­a­ble. ;) Can’t do much locally, but could con­tribute to a bur­sary or other spon­sor­ship of a mod­est amount. Would really pre­fer to not have to get into down­town Boston.

    As to venues, one of the issues is late night access to space(s) for sprints, etc. Not sure if Uni­ver­si­ties or Com­pa­nies would be bet­ter for that. Hotels might be ideal, esp. if there is an off-season dis­count and/or break for hav­ing atten­dees also there. But that might be too large scale until the event becomes a mega-attraction. :)

  • tphern­don

    I’m inter­ested, and would hap­pily drive up from NYC area. And yes, I do like beer, thanks for asking!

    One thing of note: *avoid* the end of Octo­ber. Shoot for the begin­ning. Oth­er­wise, all your stu­dents will be up in Salem, MA get­ting drunk and ogling the witches (wax mod­els or not). At least, my impres­sion the one time I went was that most of MA’s stu­dents were there.

    On the other hand, that should make things eas­ier for the south­ern side of Boston…

  • http://jessenoller.com jnoller

    Oh, I want you to come, com­plain­ing is optional — but entirely
    amus­ing :)

  • http://jessenoller.com jnoller

    Yes, there are a few of us — Doug, James tauber, etc that live in MA.
    Yes, there’s prob­a­bly enough in the state to put some­thing together.
    The point is, is to do some­thing big enough to draw peo­ple out­side the
    state in.

    Just based on try­ing to recruit python peo­ple in the area, there
    aren’t as many as I’d like.

    I’d like to point out I live here again :)

    If you want I can call it PyNortheast :)

  • http://jessenoller.com jnoller

    Oh, I want you to come, com­plain­ing is optional — but entirely
    amus­ing :)

  • http://jessenoller.com jnoller

    Yes, there are a few of us — Doug, James tauber, etc that live in MA.
    Yes, there’s prob­a­bly enough in the state to put some­thing together.
    The point is, is to do some­thing big enough to draw peo­ple out­side the
    state in.

    Just based on try­ing to recruit python peo­ple in the area, there
    aren’t as many as I’d like.

    I’d like to point out I live here again :)

    If you want I can call it PyNortheast :)

  • Christo­pher Chapman

    >So, would you be interested/willing to come.

    yes, please

    >Where would you be trav­el­ing from?

    Fram­ing­ham, MA

    >Do you like Beer (we have lots)?

    no, thanks

  • Christo­pher Chapman

    >So, would you be interested/willing to come.

    yes, please

    >Where would you be trav­el­ing from?

    Fram­ing­ham, MA

    >Do you like Beer (we have lots)?

    no, thanks

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