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From BarcampBangalore

[edit] Scope and Purpose

This purpose of this document is not to lay down an unbreakable guideline for Barcamp Bangalore 5. Instead, this document seeks to elucidate the governing principles behind the Collective approach for BCB5.

Encourage certain behaviours, not enforce them.
Influence, shape as opposed to control, dictate, mandate.
Suggest, not prescribe.

[edit] What is a collective?

A collective is a group of people in the context of Barcamp Bangalore who have similar interests and/or learning desires. They come together, interact, share knowledge and enrich each other in a harmonious way. They are focus-groups which on one hand treat their topic of interest in some detail whilst also interacting with other collectives in an inter-disciplinary manner.

Collectives are not other real-world groups and entities such as specific language user-groups, operating systems user-groups, coalition of artists, musical bands etc. While many of us are active members of such groups and forums, we also realise that participation as such groups creates a mini-event in itself. Such groups tend to be inward focused, usually do not mingle with other collectives, and contribute lesser than optimal to the larger Barcamp ecosystem. This has nothing to do with the people involved with these groups; it's just that the organizational nature of such groups within the context of a Barcamp leads to air-tight mini-events in themselves.

The above represents a change from BCB4, wherein collectives were more loosely defined. We hope this change encourages more interaction between collectives and raises the overall intellectual level of the event.

[edit] Resource allocation

Collectives in BCB5 can avail of spaces to organize their sessions and discussions and intermingle with other collectives.

There are two kinds of spaces available:

1. A standard room that can accommodate about 75 (IIMB classrooms). Each room will have a projector. These are well suited for large collectives that have a lot of audience-targeted talks, demos and peepeetease. [Please, people, engage your participants, don't lecture to them.]
2. Pre-allocated areas in the IIMB corridors and lawns (well-marked to prevent confusion or ownership issues). These areas will be furnished with mattresses so that participants can sit around and have a good engrossing discussion. These are well suited for smaller collectives that intend to have more of interactive, close-knit discussions.

Spaces are available in time slots of three hours each. There are four such slots available. A collective may claim only one space and slot during the event. See table below:

Notes:

• Large generic collectives such as "Mobile", "Internet", "Startups" are requested to break up their collectives into smaller, more focused collectives in order to enrich the depth of discussions and also fit within the 3 hour slots.
• Exact slot will be allocated closer to the date of the event. Stay tuned. We're considering making them available on a first come first serve basis as with the wiki board in the past, but this is not finalised.
• Each collective should have one or two "Collective Facilitators" responsible for the collective's coordination and schedule and, should it be necessary, to interact with the BCB5 planning group. Please have a look at the responsibilities of a facilitator.

[edit] The Great Collective FAQ

• I want to form a collective. What do I do?
  • Add your collective to the list of collectives
  • Go to the BCB5 Collectives Forum and start a new topic, with your collective as the subject, and give a brief description about what the collective is about. Thats it!
• Even for our small collective, we would like to have more time than three hours
  • Before or after the slot, collectives are welcome to gather at any place, conduct hallway discussions or hang out with folks from other collectives. This is the usual practice and nothing changes here. The three hour limit is on the exclusive allocation of the space alone.
• Can I be a part of more than one collective?
  • Yes, definitely!
• I want to be a part of collective A, B, and C, but B and C fall in the same time slot.
  • There is a constraint on the number of resources (rooms, projectors etc). While, we ideally would also like to make sure everybody can participate in all collectives of their choice, this becomes mathematically impossible issue to resolve. You should talk to the other collectives and see if they are interested in swapping slots.
• We have 15 speakers in our collective; even if everybody takes up 20 minutes, we will overshoot the 3 hr limit.
  • We need to be creative and keep the collectives tight and focused. Some things you can think about to circumvent such situations:
    • Will all the talks need a "room"/projector?
    • Can the talks be grouped together and another collective be formed?
    • Are there enough number of people who really want to listen to all these talks?
  • The collective is empowered to make these decisions.
• Are user-groups not allowed to be a collective ?
  • User groups such as Bangalore Ruby Users' Group, BangPypers (Python), Bangalore Open Java Group (BOJUG), Bangalore Open Solaris Group (BOSUG), Bangalore Linux Users' Group (BLUG) and many others have been great participants and supporters of Barcamp. While we love these UGs, we have noticed that collectives formed by these user-groups become mini-events in themselves. We would request you to consider having, say, a RubyOnRails collective or a Django collective or a OpenSolaris collective rather than represent one particular user-group.
• Can there be more than one collective on the same topic?
  • Yes! Collectives are formed around people and their shared interests, not around topics. All participants aren't necessarily of the same expertise level or chasing the same outcomes, so it makes sense to have two more collectives sharing the same topics but targeting different expertise levels or outcomes.
• Is there a limit on how many collectives can be formed?
  • No. Collectives are a way for participants to discover each other. There is no reason for the event to dictate or limit how you may gather. However, spaces are in limited supply and your collective may not get one, so you should be prepared to make the most of what is available, whether meeting up during the breaks or in the unmarked areas of the corridors.