So I’m a bitch, sorry. Joburg can keep 27.
Let’s bring the Cape Town Geek Dinner back. Original and best.
rwhois search on ‘geekdinner.org.za’:
GEEKDINNER_1172654850_ORGZA (geekdinner.org.za)
Johann Botha
P.O. Box 23618, Claremont, 7735Administrative Contact:
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Tel: 0216893867 Fax:Record last updated on 28-Feb-2007 11:27:30
Status: ActiveDomain name servers in listed order:
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To quote The Lush…
The Geek Dinner at Relish was gorgeous, classy and well organised. Not something true geeks could organise, no offence guys. I think you’re brilliant but organisational skills, generally speaking, are not often possessed by a true geek.
Well, we’re just going to have to see about that.
I have a little Xen box up. Wiki, Blog and other details will follow. I’m thinking Barbarellas would be a nice venue. It has a nice scifi angle to it. Nobody can resist the image of a hot woman with a ray gun. We’ll find us a wine sponsor. Ideas are welcome.
Now Joe this seems very interesting. Please prove me wrong, I’d love to eat my words. If you pull this off I will eat my words, just print them out on nice paper.
Love the idea of highjacking it back. Was chatting to the CM guys earlier today about that, and how not to use it as a marketing / job recruitment platform we we all get bored to death.
[...] I loved the Joburg 27dinner on 27 January. In part it was because I got to speak and in part because I was there in a semi-official capacity as the soon to be chief chili of chilibean media (which hadn’t been announced yet). For the most part it was great to have a bunch of people from different backgrounds there (geeks, marketeers and jeeks) participating in the overall vibe. The first Cape Town 27dinner was held last night and reports are starting to emerge that it wasn’t as much fun or as interesting as the Joburg one. Mike Stopforth has a post in which he comments on the cliques and divisions in the crowd. As he points out, the 27dinners are meant to be about diversity and he feels that the Cape Town one fell short of that goal. Apparently one group of people talked throughout some of the talks given. One attendee mentioned to me that the dinner was a little bit like a bad wedding where the speakers tend to ignore their time limits and just kept going on and on with their less than subtle sales pitches. The geek quarter seems to be intend on seceding from the 27dinner movement and hijacking the geek dinner effort that preceded the 27dinners. [...]
If you’re looking for (brief) speakers give me a shout.
Hey Nick
Excellent, thanks.
I’ll try to get the wiki up asap.
There’s no need to think of this as an escape or alternative of 27dinner – any more than I think we should think of it as just an extension of what CLUG has been doing with twice-a-month dinners for the past 7+ years…
I’m keen to be involved in anything that introduces me to new people and new ideas, so long as the rest of the people there are into it for that reason, and are willing to accommodate me.
(Which reminds me – I really need to organise the next Python User Group meeting…)
Neil
And, uh, I’m obviously more than happy to speak on whatever people want to hear about. And, well, Python propaganda.
Hmmm… completely agree with all the comments from the geek side. I wonder if getwine (www.getwine.co.za) would be interested in supplying some unlabelled wine? They seem quite intaweb friendly.
Neil: I told you there should have been a talk on generic functions at the 27! (;
Hi Neil
Added you to my notes for speakers.
I’d like it to be similar to the clug dinners. But..
* bigger, with more people
* more self contained, an “event” on it’s own
* a bit more groovy, busy, vibey
* have more of a business networking side
* include the blogging community
..in some ways a hybrid of the two worlds we’ve seen evolve so far (CLUG and 27), in some ways actually very much the same thing which Max was doing with the original Geek Dinner idea.
Hey Bryn
Cool image on your website.
I’m sure many wine farms would jump at this chance. It would be nice to get a smaller and authentic wine farm and not a big “rack’em and pack’em” style label.
Guess I’ll have to phone around a bit.
I really like http://www.rustenberg.co.za/
I’m in!
I’m not a great speaker, but I’d be happy to balance Neil’s Python propaganda with some Ruby. (My second favourite language, but we can’t have too many Python zealots around…)
..sounds like a challenge to me! Max rolls up her sleeves & gets back in. The geekdinner is ALIVE.
The whole thing with the 27 vs geekdinner thing is so wild. But things could be worse than us trying to outdo each other in creating new spaces to connect, do business and explore what a real tech start-up culture SHOULD look like. I’ve been paying attention to the culture in tech hotspots around the world & we need to catch up a little >> a LOT of business goes down through social interaction..and I sure as hell am not going to be playing golf.
Lets shape our world the way we want it to be here, so we can live local & work global. We build a tight tech community and I assure you we will have massive investment flooding at us >> We have superb minds here: far too many doing projects waaaaay below their capacity! That’s just a waste of valuable geekdom right there.
“Reality is the temporary resultant of the struggle between rival gangs of programmers” – Robert Anton Wilson
Hey Max
The party is picking up.. (-;
I just had a chat with Tania at Barbarellas.
Wed 28 March. Confirmed. Starting between 18:00 and 19:00. We have the whole venue for a private function. Can seat up to 100 people.
I swear if anyone gives a talk about that syntactically clumsy, semantically dyslexic, useless excuse for a programming language called Ruby I will be forced to do a 90-minute Matlab advertorial.
Who wants a piece of this???
Well Henk, I was thinking of a short talk on Ruby on Rails. NOT a sales pitch, just a short summary of a year’s experience using it. We can arrange a dark corner for your Matlab advertorial, I’m sure
Count me in!
[...] The 27dinners, born of the geekdinners and BarCamps here, as factious as they may be in these early phases are a good example of this, . Another of the maxims that has shown its consistency through economic history is: culture precedes commerce. There is method in the madness of playing together first. (And I’m not bloody well playing golf to get the advantages – dinner & fabulous wine now THAT’s an idea) I did a post yesterday at SARocks! on the challenges we face with start-up culture particularly in the tech sector here in South Africa. We have some visionary leaders coming to the fore, some hypertalented hardworking geeks, beauty-obsessed designers and fascinated venture capitalists.. it could be worse! [...]
[...] The 27dinners, as factious as they may be in these early phases are a good example of this, born of the geekdinners and BarCamps. Another of the maxims that has shown its consistency through economic history is that culture precedes commerce. There is method in the madness of playing together first. (And I’m not bloody well playing golf to get the advantages – dinner & fabulous wine now THAT’s an idea) [...]
(@ Max and in general):
No matter how much talent there is, it will never become a successfull industry if:
1) People don’t work together
2) People accept other people
3) People become professional
Now, looking at the local situation\culture\mentality:
1) Few people here really work together – more often they rip each other off (hit and run) instead of investing in relationships that last years;
2) Xenophobia is rampant – “SA is great, the rest of the world is only out there to get them”. Guys, wake up: that was before 94 – since then you’re not on anybody’s radar anylonger. So, get over your inferiority complex and get to WORK;
3)
a) Africa time is for losers – if you can’t manage your own time, don’t expect anybody else to let you manage his money, account or company – grow up, be a man, be in time;
b) You have a cellphone? Of course you do, it’s your status\phallus symbol. Then use it – to inform people about appointments, delays etc. Communicate. Return calls. Mxit is fab cool, but that is not what you have a phone for when making a living;
c) Prepare yourself, present yourself, educate yourself – about your industry, country, this world you live in – it’s a national hobby to whine about your country, ‘abroad being heaven’: have you been there? Realising what it takes to survive there? If not, shut up and count your blessings – you’re only making a fool of yourself. And boring, sounding like a broken record.
Now, back to work. Hard. Together. And fair. There’s a lot to do, but more to gain.
[...] Firstly, The GeekDinner is not the 27 dinner. [...]