Did You Like Make Web Not War? Comment Below!
Across the east coast, web developer geeks everywhere pooled together for a week long event of social networking, developer codefests, web conferencing seminars, rockband showdowns and panel discussions all having to do with developing on the beloved web at MonDev aka Montreal Open Source Week with grand finale at Make Web Not War 2010 (#webnotwar). Tell us what you thought, so we can make this happen next year! There is so much going on with creating the ultimate web conference experience, it’s sometimes hard to catch the essence of how good (or bad) the event was, with a small portion of evaluations hastily collected towards the end. So we need your help, if you liked Make Web Not War and want to see it again next year, comment below and/or complete your session eval online (http://webnotwar.bnotions.ca) on how much you liked and what you liked at the event! If you have a blog post about your recap too – be sure to include the link for us all to share to help us continue doing this event in the future! <COMMENT> At the end of your comment, please end off with the answer to ONE question: “Would you like Make Web Not War 2010 to happen again next year?” </COMMENT> Here is a recap of a few of the elements of this year’s Make Web Not War in Montreal:
- #DEVTrain (aka #nerdtrain) from Toronto to Montreal on the VIA Rail with http://devtrain.ca GPS tracker
- Sessions/Schedule – Main Room panel discussion & Technical Room Format
- Speakers – Including keynote speaker Joel Perras and various local open source & Microsoft community evangelists
- CodeFest – Run by devLAB Montréal, PHPQuebec & Windows Azure
- Lounge – DELL working stations, Microsoft Hardware mountain, Green Screen Video Crew, Rockband Area, TechDays booth, WebsiteSpark surveys
- Food – Comfort food including pasta, hamburgers, hotdogs and lots of coffee
- Smile for the Cameras – Avatar Captures by Chris Luckhardt & Video Filming Crew by The Biz Media
- Giveaways – 2GB USB keys with guitar picks (collect all 5 for entry into After Party)
- FTW! Coding Competition – showdown featuring #findahome, #tholus, #taxicity
- Twitter Wall – built by Jet Cooper
- Online Evaluation App – built by BNOTIONS
- After Party at Jello Martini Bar & Lounge – catered by Schwartz & sushi
Few image recaps from our Flickr Pool (be sure to tag your photos at #webnotwar to appear in the pool at http://www.flickr.com/groups/webnotwar)
10 Comment
What a wonderful event! Really liked the casual atmosphere and the overall web 2.0/start-up vibe. As someone mentioned on Twitter, a distinct lack of Microsoft corporate branding was refreshing. Some sessions were better than others – the one on OData was a real eye-opener; I hope Montreal will follow Vancouver and Edmonton in this. Learned a couple of neat things, but more importantly got to chat and socialize with other Canadian developers. Would I attend in 2011? Absolutely. Thanks to everyone who made it possible!
I think WebNotWar was an excellent conference because it put the real “makers of the web” all together in one place to talk about what’s next for the future of web development. The entire event was well executed from the #devtrain to the truce after party.
One improvement I would recommend is the lengthen the app demos portion as it would seem to be that demonstrating a new web app, other than those from FTW, would be of particular importance considering the tone and subject matter of the conference itself. 5 minutes is a bit lean to demo an app. Good to explain a concept or idea, but not quite long enough to do a good demo.
“Would you like Make Web Not War 2010 to happen again next year?”
Absolutely! I’ll be there!
Make Web Not War was an extrodinary event. I enjoyed getting to meet people from the Open Source community as I typically go to .NET focused events. I would love to see the conference continue many years into the future. I would like to see the venue continue to rotate into different geographical regions.
It was really nice event. Really enjoyed being here and honoured to be part of the organization in the CodeFest part. We have some recommendations to make but all in all, really fun to meet and talk with people and learn from our differences. Can’t wait for next year! I would love to see it happen again in Montreal.
This was the very first event I have been to, and yes it was quite an experience for me. Learned new things that I could come home with that will help me progress with my work. It would be cool to see Web Not War here again next year, maybe include more talks on Wordpress, since thats what I mainly came for, im a Wordpress freak! See you next year hopefully!
Make Web Not War has to be one of the best tech events I’ve attended. It was extremely well organized (way to go Angie Lim & team), lots of fun, and showed a great sense of community between Microsoft and the Open Source movement. There was a good variety of sessions to take in, including sessions on the mobile web, HTML5, OSS on Windows and more. The coding competition showed off some serious talent amongst the competitors. The fun aspect was just as good too, from the good times in the lounge, to the DEVTrain from Toronto to Montreal and back, to the after party and the upbeat vibe between the communities. I also had a blast doing photography for the event!
Make Web Not War needs to happen again!
I think you guys met all the expectation and did a great job organizing this first Montreal version of WebNotWar. Of course there will be a next year with more talks and hands-on
I’ll be there!
As the winner of the FTW competition, I am a little biased. But I think the #webnotwar event was fantastic! It was my first time in attendance and I really enjoyed the friendly and casual atmosphere of the event. There was some learning to be had in the main stream, but I think that next year would benefit from a little more “learning” such as delving into source code of really cool demo apps of the technologies being presented. Hands-on learning like that always generates a lot more excitement.
Another great aspect of this particular event, as opposed to other Microsoft sponsored events I have been to, is the real emphasis on bringing all developers together. Like Joel had said in the keynote at the beginning of the day, as developers we tend to stick to our circles of expertise. Myself being primarily a .net developer, it was really good to meet and get to know a lot of developers that use other technologies and learn from them.
All in all, I really enjoyed the event and look forward to next year. Hopefully, I will make finalist again in next year’s FTW competition, and I hope everyone who attended this year also makes a submission in the competition.
I really enjoyed the event! Good people, interesting topics, nice comfortable facilities.
I would definitely come next year.
Super event, it was really different from most web events I’ve been to, because of the very “produced” Microsoft feel, but that was OK since there was such a diverse group of people there and there was a big focus on seeing what other people/systems can do and are good at. So I would say keep the polish, it did make it fun, and keep the diversity, it made it interesting.
Having the lounge and the different spaces for people to do stuff was cool too, another way of adding to the variety.
–Julian
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