Re: [guadec-list] Key Note Speakers

[Paul Cooper <pgc openadvantage org>]

----- Dave Neary <dneary free fr> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Paul Cooper wrote:
[snip]
> 
> Thanks for the comments! All spot on, and in line with my own
> thinking
> (I would like to see more names for the design category though, if
> anyone has ideas - last year I suggested James Dyson, for example -
> or
> how about Jonathan Ives?). Simon Phipps was there last year, so I'd
> hesitate about inviting him again as a keynote.
> 
> One other comment jumped out at me, and demanded a response:
> 
> >> - Joel Spolsky - http://www.joelonsoftware.com/ - Eric Sink -
> >> http://www.ericsink.com/ (pretty windows oriented, though...)
> > 
> > Both of these guys would be good to give a more developer oriented
> > talk - Joel would be my preference since he would seem to have more
> > interest / awareness of open-source.
> 
> Eric Sink was a founder of Abisource, and one of the initial
> developers
> of Abiword (just a point of information).

Good point I'd forgotten that!

> And just a couple of other notes:
> 
> >> - The Internet's Jono Bacon?
> > 
> > I was going to suggest Jono too, but then I thought it might be
> even
> > better to have the whole LUGRadio team do a keynote. Perhaps they
> > could do a series of 5 - 10 minute interviews? They are pretty
> > creative so maybe just leave it to them and see what they come up
> > with. Might be good for the closing keynote?
> 
> Jono contacted me after I suggested him to say that he would love to
> do
> a keynote, and is preparing a new keynotey type presentation which he
> would like to give us.

OK, that's useful to know. I had thought a final wrapup thing from the LUGRadio team might be quite amusing but I'm sure there will be plenty else for them to be doing.

> > To add to the list;
> > 
> > Tim O'Reilly (Thos's suggestion) - Tim has family in the UK so is a
> > possibility but it might be too close to OSCON.
> 
> He's Irish - get your filthy "any Paddy who succeeds is really
> British"
> mits off 'im.

Read again what I said ;-) I've never said he wasn't of Irish descent, just that his family lives in the UK.

> > Hugh McCleod - http://www.gapingvoid.com/. Slightly left field
> > suggestion. Blogger who helped build English Cut, and Stormhoek
> wine
> > simply through his blog, cartoons, and word of mouth.
> 
> In line with Seth Godin and Guy Kawasaki - but I get the feeling that
> all of those aren't really well suited to GUADEC.

I think theres a two way trade if we can a) persuede one of these guys to turn up - then we get informed & entertained and b) tempt them to go to other talks or activities, and get them informed & entertained. Hopefully our awesome community will inspire them to spread the word.

It seemed a shame to me that, for example, Kathy Sierra didn't appear in any other sessions, granted she may have been in different ones to me, but if she did go along to anything else it didn't inspire her to write anything in her blog about it (whereas Euro RubyConf got a nice entry - the much later entry about tshirts notwithstanding).

Anyway that's prompted me to think about some other suggestions (since we're so short of ideas ;-)

Bastien suggested a large user a la Dreamworks in Stuttgart - we felt that any of the main vendors might have contacts that could be persued.

Along the same lines would be one of the 'big converts' Mark Pilgrim, Tim Bray, and Cory Doctorow. By that time they'll have been using Gnome for around a year (presuming that don't switch back or to something else) and might provide some feedback?

Paul

> Cheers,
> Dave.
> 
> -- 
> Dave Neary
> dneary free fr


-- 
Paul Cooper                    |  Tel: 0121 634 1620
Assistant Director             |  Fax: 0121 634 1630
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