me.andering – Willem van den Ende

After we opened the wiki and mailinglist the next thing to open up at Agile Open is the Registration.

I enjoy experiencing the development of Agile Open. We try to keep involvement in organising the event as open as possible. So we now have more goals and start to have preliminary ideas for sessions on the wiki and the mailing list now has a lively discussion on what the schedule can be like. Even though we do not plan the sessions, we do plan to create a container around it. So far, we have an opening session, with an explanation of the process and announcement and selection of sessions. At the end of the first day, there is likely to be a temperature reading so the conference can be modified while it is running followed by a conference banquet of some sort, and there will be a short re-opening session and a closing session on saturday.

We will not select sessions before the conference, as that is done by the participants at the first morning of the conference. I want to make that extra clear, as we are having difficulty getting the way the conference works across, especially for those who have not yet attended an open space conference. It is not two days of unstructured chatting, nor is it a pre-defined conference (as the IdeasForSessions page suggested to an Open Space veteran). So it is both possible to have fun with creating sessions beforehand, as it is to propose a ‘in the flow’ spur-of- the-moment session on the morning the conference starts.

For your information, I post the full text of the invitation below:

Agile Open 2005

1st Internatonal Open Space Conference on Agile Software Development

29 and 30 April 2005, Mechelen (Belgium)

http://www.agileopen.net

Movements really rise or fall on the strength of on-going social occasions – XP user group meetings, XP Days, Agile Seminars, XP and Agile conferences, and the Agile Open Conference are the epicenters of the agile movement.

The Agile Open conference is an international OpenSpace conference intended for software development and business people from all walks of life, taking place on 29 and 30 April 2005, in Mechelen, Belgium … we invite you to an amazingly open, warm and lively community space where people spark new insights in and relationships for collaborative (software) development and doing business together.

Agile Open is for participants, by participants: we determine the actual program together at the start of the conference. We do not expect people to invent all the sessions on the spot, so we encourage you to put ideas for sessions on the conference wiki. Any ideas for sessions you would like to experience, or hear and see happen, as well as ideas for sessions you would like to organize and facilitate are welcome. Equally, this page gives an impression of the variety of sessions you can expect at the conference:

http://www.agileopen.net/Conference/IdeasForSessions.html

Location

The conference will take place at Elewijt Center, in Mechelen (Belgium): http://www.elewijtcenter.be The center is near an international airport and train station (Brussels). The Elewijt offers a limited number of rooms. We offer our help in making reservations and encourage hotel room sharing.

Fees and Registration

We have limited the number of participants to 60, on a first paid, first served basis.

Until April 8th, the conference fee is 180 Euro (exclusive of 21% VAT); from April 9th, the fee is 230 Euro (excl. VAT). The fee includes conference access, lunches, drinks, one dinner, and closing reception.

Registration is possible through http://www.agileopen.net/Conference/Registration.html .

On-site registration is not possible.

Organization

Agile Open is organized on a non-profit basis by Agile Systems vzw (http://www.agilesystems.org), a non-profit organisation with the purpose of collecting and disseminating knowledge and experience about agile software development and systems thinking. The conference organizers are:

Marc Evers (NIWI-KNAW), Willem van den Ende (Living Software), Nynke Fokma (Moebius), Pascal Van Cauwenberghe (Nayima), Vera Peeters (Tryx), Marko van der Puil (Brains4All)