This weekend we held the fourth iteration of MeasureCamp Sydney. For those who don't recognise the term, MeasureCamp is an unconference. A slightly chaotic affair quite unlike an ordinary conference.
It's free. It's on a Saturday. There's no keynote speakers or vendor pitches. Everything is sorted out on the day.
Once things kick off, people rush to write up sessions they plan to run and get them up on the board. The day flows from there.
This year we had about 180 people through the door, a record for us. Given it's free, we're always a little unsure of the exact numbers to expect which can be nerve wracking but it's great to see such a large group willing to spend a gorgeous sunny Saturday indoors learning from each other and sharing knowledge.
We're able to do this because of an amazing sponsors who chip in the funds to house, clothe and feed all the attendees. Without them we wouldn't be able to do it!
Highlights for me? I really dug Vincey Au's session on building anomaly detection in Python and Corinne Brooker's Introvert's Guide to the Galaxy where she explained how to make the most of both your loud extroverts and your quieter, more thoughtful introverts.
It was a brilliant day and we all learnt heaps. Afterwards we retired to a local pub for food, drink and analytics trivia. Lots of great prizes handed out for some very creative answers and work on the Pop Charts.
And the whole thing wouldn't happen without our amazing organising committee who've put in countless hours of hard work to make it happen. It's the fourth year so we're getting pretty smooth with it these days, but there's still a lot of work finding sponsors and badgering for payment, organising t-shirts, catering, venues, lanyards, volunteers, software, websites, emails. Thanks so much for Rod, Josh, Priscilla, Moe, Jethro, Mike, Calum and Chaoming for all the hard work.
Some more roundups from LinkedIn: