Hippo

Kirsten and I got married last week after being Cocoon GetTogether for about 5 years. Hurray! We had an excellent day in the sun with lots and lots of friends, and a really nice week in Florence afterwards. Excellent! I'd like to thank all of my Hippo, Luminas, Sourcesense and Apache buddies who where there to see me wearing a proper suit and shiny new ring :). And to the rest: sorry, gals, he's a married guy now! :-)

Lady Coco wants it all
And just when you think you've had it all - organizing the location, the food, the music, the rooms, the beds, the drinks, the speakers, all the official stuff and of course all of the fun stuff - it hits you right in the back: there she is again, that other lovely woman in your life. She calls herself Coco, although "Cocoon GetTogether" is her real name and she's *not* happy that you've left her for some other chick.

So there you go again, hunting down speakers, attendees, sponsors, rooms, diners, drinks, hotels, proposals, WiFi access, whiteboards, power outlets, yada, yada, yada... The lady demands fulltime attention. Again!

But, heck, she's fun, and I'm looking forward to having everyone back in Amsterdam in October again to relive the three-day Cocoon GT rollercoaster. Currently, the counter is at almost 40 attendees from 7 different countries, which is quite a lot given the fact that the program is not even online yet.. A really good sign. This year, the hackaton days are free, thanks to our wonderful sponsors S&N (thanks guys!) and my company Hippo. Now there's *no* excuse anymore for you to skip the hackaton days, it's just too much fun to miss. And really important for Cocoon, too!.

Pizza hacking
In the meantime, I've been talking with the venue about doing a pizza-and-beers evening hacking session on monday, October 2nd. Also, the WiFi access will be much more improved after last year's four o'clock automatic WiFi shutdown troubles. There'll be plenty of power outlets again (certainly after I've seen what a shortage of outlets can do to a big crowd like this year's ApacheCon Europe in Dublin..).

More room
Also, there's still the option of using an extra, smaller room during to the hackaton or conference days for tutorials or other sessions. Although the budget might allow it, I'm awaiting any brilliant ideas for the room, otherwise I will cancel it and use the money for something more appropriate. So, go on, don't be shy!

Hackaton agenda
On October 2nd and October 3rd, the days before the Cocoon Gettogether 2006, there is a Hackathon foreseen at the Felix Meritis Foundation building in the center of Amsterdam.
It might be good to start thinking about how we'll be filling the two Hackathon days.. Please jot your ideas down on the Wikipage!

The main idea is to use this page to hack together some agenda for both days. Please make this a joint effort. There's one big moshpit-like room available for us on the 2nd or 3rd floor, which can hold up to 60 or 80 people.

The Hackathon will start on both days at 9:00 AM and ends around 18:00. There'll be food on both days, on monday in the room itself and on tuesday outside.
In the evenings the room is available for use until 23:00. There's no evening program defined, but anything goes, so jot down any ideas on the Wikipage!

Hackaton infrastructure and logistics
There will be:

• food


• drinks


• long tables


• WiFi access


• some hubs for wired access (bring your own cable!!)


• plenty of power outlets


• fairly large whiteboard (will 3 normal ones do?)


• 3 flip charts


• tape to assemble pages


• beamer + screen to beam on

Conference day (wednesday) infrastructure and logistics
The talks will be in the same building as the hackaton, but we'll have a much nicier room available that can easily hold around 120 people. There'll be:

• chairs


• food


• drinks


• (some!) long tables


• lots of WiFi access


• plenty of power outlets


• big beamer + screen to beam on


• all audio gear you could dream of


• CocoonGT shirts!

After the conference, there'll be a nice reception with drinks and snacks.
What am I forgetting??? OMG - panic rushes to the head all over again ;)

See you soon!

-- Arjé