[Philadelphia-pm] FOSSCON July 23rd in Philadelphia

[Gabor Szabo]

Hi Chris,

On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 1:00 PM, Chris Nehren
<c.nehren/phl at shadowcat.co.uk> wrote:
> On Mar 21, 2011, at 5:58 AM, Gabor Szabo wrote:
>
>> Hi
>
> Hi
>
>> this year FOSSCON will take place on July 23rd in Philadelphia.
>> http://fosscon.org/
>
> I have nothing to do with it being in Philadelphia this year. Honest. Statements placing the blame solely on me are greatly exaggerated.
>
> (for those playing along at home without sarcasm detectors: yeah, this is largely the result of me prodding jonathand on freenode :)

Oh I did not know that. Now you have to deliver a full perl track at
the event :)
(Do they have tracks ?)

>> The Call for paper is out and there is also an possibility
>> to setup a booth for exhibitors. The dead-line for both of
>> these is June 24th.
>
> I definitely plan on attending, and just need to come up with a single idea for a talk (am quite loquacious but slightly indecisive).
>
> What would a booth entail? What have previous ones featured? I've only staffed a job booth for about an hour or so for a previous employer, so don't know what/how to do.
>

It is basically setting a fixed place in the hallway track for Perl
related chats.

It is usually just a table.
You bring some stuff (e.g. print some of the info pages or fliers
others prepared).
Maybe even some books to sell (e.g. we can arrange a few copies of Modern Perl)
You make sure there is always at least one of you at the table which
is usually not
hard.
You grab the people walking near by, give them a card with a few
"talking points".
e.g. logos of Moose, Catalyst, Dancer, Rakudo, Parrot, Perl 6 etc.
sg like this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44203237@N07/4357954174/in/set-72157623437904012/

They will find something that interests them and you can start talking
about that.
Worst case they trigger the "When will Perl 6 be released?" question
and from there
you can go and talk to them about Moose. Or invite them to a Perl 6 talk.
In either case Perl wins.

You can also give away wooden round tuits and/or you can make
pins or stickers for your local PM group.

I collected the reports about FOSDEM 2011 here:
http://perl-ecosystem.org/events/fosdem_2011
Especially you can take a look at the pictures of our booth here:
http://nxadm.wordpress.com/2011/02/08/perl-at-fosdem-and-some-photographic-impressions/

regards
   Gabor

-- 
Gabor Szabo                     http://szabgab.com/
Perl Ecosystem Group       http://perl-ecosystem.org/