Archive for September, 2009
« Previous EntriesSunday, September 13th, 2009
The shape of TechMeetup to come
Having put all of the responses into a tag cloud generator, which produced an nice description of TechMeetup, I thought it best to process the feedback a little further. All of the TechMeetup organisers are meeting this week to ensure we’ve got a good plan for the future. Anyone wanting to gain some serious respect with organising TechMeetup, email me (more information here). TechMeetup is growing fast and we continue to need more volunteers to manage the effort. We can achieve big things people.. 
I’m posting the results of the feedback here so that people who have commented can see how their feedback may have weighed up against others. Forany critics of my statistical accuracy, I should say that 31 people responded with these respective “skews”:
- Fantastic, I wouldn’t change it for the world (14)
- Good but could be better, I’ll tell you why (17)
- Pretty crap, here are some suggestions to fix it (0)
Good, nobody thinks it’s crap.
So what do people think? Here’s a run down, feel free to comment on anything you have an opinion on.
Saturday, September 12th, 2009
Seedcamp week – who’s coming?
While you were eating pizza at Techmeetup Edinburgh on Wednesday, we were pitching to the Seedcamp panel in a very small, intense room in London. It seems they liked us – we got through to Seedcamp Week starting Sep 21st along with nineteen of the top early-stage startups around UK and Europe (see the full list on TechCrunch). It was nice to see the other startups having prototypes up and running, usually on a shoestring. However, Andrey, Gavin and I pitched an idea that hasn’t been developed at all yet – but it is a super exciting idea. Depending on what happens at the next stage, we will maybe do a Techmeetup talk on what it’s like going through Seedcamp week and some of the stuff we learn. It’s going to be intense but we’re all really excited about it.
Anyone want to come down to the TechCrunch party on Thurs Sep 24th and big up the Scottish scene? I’ll be there telling everyone about Techmeetup and getting some good speakers for the near future. It’s a great chance to meet a lot of well-known investors and a some of the young hot UK and European startups – it would be sweet to have a good representation of Scotland down there. I think you should come..
Saturday, September 12th, 2009
Your Techmeetup feedback (in part)
I’m compiling all of the feedback on Techmeetup and trying to extract common sentiments. Visualising everyones responses with a tag cloud is pretty interesting. It isn’t entirely accurate, especially looking at the size of “beer”, which was surely the most popular word in all. I’ll post some more definitive information when it’s ready and expect to see a lot of these changes over the next few meetups as we try some different things.
If anyone is interested in helping organise some of these additions to Techmeetup, we are looking for a couple of people to claim the much honoured titles of “speaker finder-getter”, “web developer/editor”, and “helper of all things”.
If you’d like to be part of Techmeetup, comment below or email me [sam at techmeetup dot co do uk].
Here’s the tag cloud describing Techmeetup.
Thursday, September 10th, 2009
TechMeetup turns one. New £300,000 fund, being an entrepreneur and making Agile work
Over 70 people turned up to join the celebration of TechMeetup’s first birthday. We kept it rather low-key on the night, the only change from the usual was cake (lots of it). Plans for a big fancy party with blackjack and hookers (imdb) are currently in the works at TechMeetup HQ. There was a good number of newcomers which is always pleasing to see, and a number of companies looking to hire people (especially C++, iPhone, Ruby and Python/Django developers).
It goes without saying that TechMeetup would not be what it is today without the hard work of Sam Collins and the help of our sponsors, Informatics Ventures.
Prof. Michael Fourman, former Head of the School of Informatics joined us to talk about Idea Lab, a new project he’s involved with which aims to bring together small teams for short development and experimentation projects to evaluate novel research applications of informatics. A £300,000 fund has been allocated for these projects. Head over to Idea Lab’s website to find out more and get in touch with someone from the team if you’re interested.
Simon Montford, a serial entrepreneur and most recently the founder of Vibio recounted the story of icollector.com — his previous startup — set in the midst of the dotcom bubble, and shared the lessons he’s learned along his journey. The biggest takeaway for me personally was the reminder of how important it is to look after your customers.
Finally, Alex Heneveld (blog, @ahtweetin) of Cloudsoft talked about how they use Agile. Alex’s approach is very pragmatic and flexible, and he’s not hesitant to throw out things that don’t work in a particular project or team.
Selective Agile by Alex Heneveld
Make sure to watch the video of the talk when it’s up. I’m sure even seasoned practicioners of Agile will learn a thing or two.
Follow us on Twitter (@techmeetup) to be notified when the videos of these talks go up.