Data Community Weekender, Data Weekender or #DataWeekender. We did the first edition on May 2nd and we’re back October 17th with the second edition, the sequel or #TheSQL if you like. Register here: https://www.meetup.com/DataWeekender/events/272258429/
For those of you who didn’t attend Data Weekender in May, Data Weekender is a free, online conference all about Microsoft Data Platform.
On our first event, we had 42 sessions on six different tracks and over 600 attendees in total. We organised the event in more or less just four weeks, from announcing the Call for Speakers to selecting sessions and running the conference. It was a lot of work, not much sleep and tons of fun. We also received really good feedback, much thanks to our lovely volunteers that helped moderating sessions and various other tasks.
This time around, we thought we’d give ourselves a little more time, and therefore we announce it more than two months in advance. It’s still going to be tons of work and not much sleep. This time, like the first time, we run Data Weekender on a zero budget, meaning we don’t accept any sponsors. All the costs involved are covered by us on the organising team. Most of all that means we don’t have a marketing budget and therefore have to rely on ourselves to try to reach out on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook about it.
Changes
Although we think our first episode of Data Weekender was really successful (it really was, way, way better than we ourselves expected), we are making a few changes this time. I can’t reveal everything yet, mainly because not everything is settled, but some of the changes are:
- We will push the schedule to a slightly later time, to allow for more speakers and attendees from North and South America. Not much though, we still want to make it possible for attendees and speakers from Australia, New Zealand, Asia, Africa and Europe to be able to attend.
- We will arrange the tracks a little differently, more on that later.
- The organising team will be put to the test, not only as organisers. You will be able to influence that. And I’m honestly a little scared about it.
Useful links
Data Weekender on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DataWeekender
Data Weekender webpage: https://www.dataweekender.com
Meetup group: https://meetup.com/DataWeekender
Register to attend: https://www.meetup.com/DataWeekender/events/272258429/
Organising team
The organising team behind Data Weekender is:
Magnus Ahlkvist (B | T)
Kevin Chant (B | T)
Gethyn Ellis (B | T)
Asgeir Gunnarsson (B | T)
Mark Hayes (B | T)
Damir Matesic (B | T)