It's only fitting that my first post for the year is around something that probably framed the year for me. I went through to Geekretreat 2009 and it was great, there were a bunch of us that got together talk about a bunch of stuff, and then partied. A lot of fun, and interesting, however it may have missed the origional purpose that the triad of Heather Ford, Justin Spratt and Eve Dmochowska were trying to convey.

Although excited about the retreat, I went with an initial feeling that maybe, due to workload or focus, my time could possibly have been spent better staying in JHB and closing down some projects that are deadlining for the end of January. It became clear quickly that the retreat was very different from last year. A large part I contribute to a mental space, an understanding of what to expect, better focused topics, and a theme running through of a focus on technology in education.

Various projects were showcased which peaked interest:

* P2PU - A peer-to-peer university project with a focus on informal education, run over the internet, with set syllabus.
* Cognician - A software based thinking guide that walks through the structure of a problem to enabled critical and systemic thought.
* Personera - An interesting project that piggyback's on Facebook in order to put together a profile of pictures etc, in order for you to create personalised calendars, wallpaper or gifts.

There were also a number of incredible conversations which were started.

* Andy Volk did a presentation on how his group runs a services based company, which also develops product. A model that several of us at the retreat had been looking at as a way to fund product without the involvement of venture capital.

* Stefan Magdalinski showed us how he liberated government data and handed it to the people who own the data, the people.

More important than the presentations and the projects were the connections made, made between people in the NGO space, and the education space with others that can help them. There have been a few projects that have rolled out of this. Resources have been allocated, and the geeks are helping each other wherever possible.

This retreat was one of binding a community around a purpose, the organisers should be proud. The people were amazing, and the outputs are good. What happens now is up to the participants, the connectors have done a fine job of putting the right people together, and I'm honoured to have been included.

External links:

From Cognician - http://cognician.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/geekretreat/ http://cognician.ning.com/profiles/blogs/geekretreat-an-inspirational
Elaine Rumboll's Blog
Eve D's Blog
Peter Flynn's Blog
Jarred Cinman's vies on the retreat

If was ever any doubt in my mind (which there hasn't) about whether social media is able to build community back in the meat space world, it would have been dispelled today at the JHB Drupal Users Group first DrupalCamp. I've been around the block as far as communities go, and the comparison between the DrupalCamp of today, using social media platforms to get to the right people, vs. that of the Gauteng Linux Users Group (GLUG) 10 years back, has astounding return on investment.

Our very first camp drew a crowd of about 90 people coming in from mixed backgrounds, and skill levels, from expert brand consultants, who were just playing with Drupal for the first time, to die hard non-core-hacking PHP and Drupal pros, centered around a single cause: Enabling anybody to build better, stronger, more flexible dynamic website, whether behind the firewall, a simple brochureware site, or a massively complex data rich enterprise site.

Justin Spratt (@justinspratt) and IS Labs not only supplied the venue for the event, but also provided some crowd pleasing information in the form of what ISLabs does as far as entreprenerual support within the country, and the give back that IS puts together for us.

Charles Tanton (@foxtrotcharlie) presented an a great outline to the conceptual stuff behind Drupal, a fairly difficult mountain to climb, and did an exceptional job of it, being clear on how the Drupal framework works and what that looks like at the end of the day. Thanks to George Ziady from Springfisher for taking the beginners into a far more practical conversation of the framework, articulating and showing clearly a step by step guide on how to use the theoretical knowledge that Charles imparted, in a paint by numbers approach to setting up a Drupal based website.

After lolling around IS' braai area, munching on boerie rolls (with many to the vegetarians, there will be a salad option at the next one) and sipping beers (or in my case far too many Vitamin Waters), the jolly digital pranksters re-congregated inside to go a little deeper down the rabbit hole. One of Telamenta's developers Greg McKeen showcased the intranet project Open Atrium and the Drupal module Features,a module package management system that was met with, well, "OOh's and Aaah's" from some of even the more seasoned Drupalers, before Willem van Straaten, founder of eConsultant closed the day with his own personal rendition of the Lion King (I have reason to believe that a video of this may be available soon).

A special thank to the sponsors of this incredible first attempt to make the South African chapters of Drupal International as proud, if not prouder than our other contingents: Telamenta, ISLabs, Cerebra, Brandsh, eConsultant, and Springfisherand personal thanks to Charles Tanton for spearheading the Jozi Drupal Users Group and all other volunteers for making this event special to all that attended.

I do have pictures from the event, and I will be putting them up shortly. You guys did yourselves and our community proud.