For those who live on planet Mars, TED “Ideas worth spreading”, are very high level conferences where speakers are as good in their field as good orator. TED is really attached to the TED brand. That’s why they created the TEDx concept, a franchise of TED where local communities can work on their own TED-style conference using the TEDx brand. A TEDx event must follow a gigantic list of rules.

I already watched a lot of TED talks, attended 2 TEDxAlsace and discussed with some other TEDx alumnis. This post is written with this past experience.

My general feeling about TEDx event is that it’s really hard to have inspiring speakers who are really good in their field and really good orators. Genius are rare. Genius who can talk easily in front of a demanding audience are really really rare. Inevitably, the audience who watched some TED videos will ask for the better. And I can only note that TEDx speakers’s level will be very heterogeneous, to say the least.

Furthermore, the TEDx rules ask you to play a fews videos of TED talks during your TEDx event. Inevitably, the audience will compare these speakers with the real one in front of you. And for some of them, it will be a rude and trustworthy slap.

For example, during the last TEDxAlsace, we were offered to watch these 3 videos :

After viewing these videos, I really didn’t want to be the next “real” speaker.

That’s why, on one hand, I recognize that organizing a TEDx event is a tough job, on the other hand, I can only note that I have mixed feelings about the final performance…

Here is a simple check list if it’s you’re first Startup Weekend :

• If you’re not part of a well organized team, or, if you know that you will work a lot, bring a sleeping bag
• A laptop and/or an iPad (lots of things are happening on The Internet these days)
• An extension cord (mainly if you own an iPhone 4S)
• A pack of energy drinks (not necessarly for you, but you will have something to trade for a new shiny logo, a chapter of your business plan or a ReTweet from a high profile tweetos lying in the next room)
• An infant school toolbox (with pens, pencils, sheet of paper, notebook, markers, postits, etc)

But maybe you will also want to pitch your idea during the Pitch Fire session ?
Don’t forget that the so called Elevator Pitch is an art. And it’s a difficult art. One minute, it’s both long and short. Here are 4 tips, here 10 tips and here 5 tips.

Here’s my 3 tips : practice, practice, practice.

During the week end, you will surely want to have your web application online (or at least a website). And you will quicckly learn that graphists are a rare resource during a Startup Weekend. Here are a few graphical resources that will help you a lot :

• Themeforest the ultimate directory of web, wordpress and ecommerce templates. From free to a few dozen bucks.
• Twitter Bootstrap to gain all the kwnoledge form the finr guys from Twitter (and here is a list of websites built with Bootstrap)
• Foundation from Zurb can also get you quickly to something nice and pretty
• Or maybe you can combine HTML5 Boilerplate with a CSS grid system like 960GS

For mockups or wireframe, don’t forget Balsamiq. And Zurb gives you for free a handful of iPhone, iPad and Android Omnigraffle stencils and even some simple Sketchsheets.

Don’t hesitate to add stuff by commenting below. And keep in mind that a Startup Weekend is a fun event !

Une question qui revient souvent en création d’entreprise et semble faire un peu peur, surtout pour les plus jeunes créateurs, est celle du choix de la technologie utilisée par la nouvelle entreprise.

Je ne vais pas ici m’adresser à tous les entrepreneurs, les cas sont trop nombreux et il faut bien avouer qu’on a réussi à faire plein de technologies différentes histoire de s’amuser un peu et de faire couler l’encre, mais seulement à celles et ceux qui se retrouvent dans les cas suivants :

• envie de monter un service web
• trouver facilement des tonnes de ressources techniques et une communauté dynamique avec de l’expérience
• s’interfacer avec d’autres services externes (Facebook, Twitter, etc)
• possibilité à terme d’avoir besoin d’exécution asynchrone
• possibilité à terme de migrer vers MongoDB ou AWS (Amazon Web Services)

… ce qui devrait être le cas de pas mal de vous, mes chères lectrices et chers lecteurs

Bref, voilà les technologies que vous pouvez choisir :

• Java/J2EE
• Python/Django
• PHP/Symfony
• PHP/CakePHP
• Ruby on Rails
• NodeJS

Voilà, sujet clos, 30 secondes chrono.

Any comment?

L’Edition 2011 de l’Agile Tour Strasbourg aura lieu le Vendredi 14 Octobre 2011 à Illkirch-Graffenstaden.

Le thème cet année est: Mise en place et évolution des méthodes agiles.

L’objectif est de connaître les outils qui permettent de démarrer l’agilité dans les projets, et ceux qui visent à améliorer son efficacité.

Les sessions interactives et les ateliers seront privilégiés, mais les retours d’expérience et les approches innovantes de l’agilité sont les bienvenues.

N’hésitez pas à diffuser largement cet appel autour de vous !

Comment proposer une présentation ?

Envoyez-nous vos propositions à:

agile-tour-strasbourg@googlegroups.com

avec les informations suivantes:

• Nom, prénom
• Mail et téléphone
• Courte biographie
• Titre de la présentation
• Résumé de la présentation
• Durée de la présentation, type de présentation (jeu agile, retour d’expérience, conférence …)
• Niveau et pré-requis des participants
• Audience cible

Pour les ateliers:

• Déroulement de la session
• Nombre maximum de participants et matériel nécessaire

Dates importantes

• Date limite de soumission des contributions: 10 septembre
• Choix des propositions: 20 septembre
• Envoi des présentations: 5 octobre

Nous espérons vous voir nombreux à Strasbourg !

L’équipe de l’AT Strasbourg 2011


]]> http://blog.strasslab.net/2011/08/04/appel-aux-orateurs-pour-lagile-tour-2011-strasbourg/feed/ 0 yannski http://blog.strasslab.net/2011/06/28/back-from-ruby-lugdunum-2011/ http://blog.strasslab.net/2011/06/28/back-from-ruby-lugdunum-2011/#comments Tue, 28 Jun 2011 19:44:00 +0000 yannski http://blog.strasslab.net/?p=610 ]]> Disclaimer : my company, Novelys, sponsored RuLu, and I organized the last RailsCampParis.

After having hesitated a little bit, because of the slow-and-old transportation facility to go from Strasbourg to Lyon, we finally decided with Justine to go to Ruby Lugdunum, the two day, single track Ruby conference in Lyon, France.

Speakers

Of course, the 11 speakers (2 french, 9 “foreigners”) were all Ruby rock stars. That means that the talks were all quite high level. That also means that if you’re not interested in a talk, you’re screwed. Wait for the next one. And yes, that’s the gripe I have for every single track conferences

Vision

I can see three types of conferences in the Ruby/Rails/OSS world :

• Single track conferences : think Frozen Rails, Euruko, etc. Ruby rock stars are speaking about their favorite subjects which won’t necessarly match your needs (or expectations!). Usually these events are made by the community, for the community.
• Gigantic multi track conferences : think RailsConf or FOSDEM. You can have what you want, on the menu, to the detriment of a less social interactions. Some stuff are made for the community, and some other stuff can be made to attract “outsiders”.
• BarCamp style un-conferences : think RailsCampParis. BarCamp means, you will get what you put on the table. But with less rockstars-style show than single or multi track conferences. Again, the events are made by the community for the community. And the level of social interactions is higher than in conferences, as BarCamps are made of pure social interactions.
• Prestige conferences : like Paris on Rails. Everybody wants to attend it and everybody wants to be on the scene. These kind of events are made for the community and to attract outsiders. You can see them as “look at what we achieved together !”

So if I understood well, the organizers want RuLu to be part of the club of European single track conferences made for the community where you can see your favorite hacker on stage. And that’s a fine goal. Even though I cleary prefers BarCamp-style conferences.

But we also need different styles of conferences (and un-conferences). But it seems there are also some other objectives pursued by RuLu : improving the adoption of Ruby in France. And this is where I don’t see the relationship between this kind of conferences and improving the Ruby community in France. I think that we need something else to enlarge our community. And I’m still searching the “what” and “how”. I mean we’re still searching, as we’re a community after all

And BTW, I would prefer if RuLu would find its own way. No need to mimick Euruko…

Conclusion

First, I will organize another RailsCamp during S2 2011. I think that Paris will be a good city to host the event, as it’s still central in France. We’ll see next year, after the inauguration of the TGV Rhin-Rhone, if I can organize something in Strasbourg

Second, of course, we still need to rejuvenate the Ruby/Rails community in France and we’re working on it ! Maybe organizing a prestige conference with all the gratin of the french IT world ? But that’s a tough task and we need a good team

Other articles on RuLu :

• Ruby en France
• RuLu 2011: Yes we did it, now it’s your turn !!

]]> http://blog.strasslab.net/2011/06/28/back-from-ruby-lugdunum-2011/feed/ 1 yannski http://blog.strasslab.net/2011/05/28/vote-for-strasbourg-for-euruko-2012/ http://blog.strasslab.net/2011/05/28/vote-for-strasbourg-for-euruko-2012/#comments Sat, 28 May 2011 12:29:15 +0000 yannski http://blog.strasslab.net/?p=606 ]]>

EuRuko is THE european Ruby conference. Every year the venue is elected by the attendees of the event.

Last year, we were in Krakow with Justine, for the 2010 edition. It’s a great conference full of nice people (the speakers, the organizers and the attendees).

We are proposing Strasbourg as a candidate city for hosting EuRuKo 2012, so please, show your support by sharing the official website on Facebook and twitter !


]]> http://blog.strasslab.net/2011/05/28/vote-for-strasbourg-for-euruko-2012/feed/ 0 yannski Strasbourg EuRuKo 2012 http://blog.strasslab.net/2011/05/18/startup-weekend-strasbourg-ingenieurs-contre-managers/ http://blog.strasslab.net/2011/05/18/startup-weekend-strasbourg-ingenieurs-contre-managers/#comments Wed, 18 May 2011 14:16:09 +0000 yannski http://blog.strasslab.net/?p=594 ]]> Le mouvement Startup Weekend prends une belle envolée ces derniers mois en France. Des villes telles que Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Montpellier, Toulouse, Bordeaux et j’en passe ont déjà organisé un ou plusieurs Startup Weekend.

J’ai d’ailleurs participé au SWPA3 (Startup Weekend Paris 3), voir à ce sujet mon article nommé “Let’s fucking do it” sur le sujet.

Faisant depuis quelques années déjà la promotion des startups et de l’entrepreneuriat d’une manière générale à Strasbourg et en Alsace, c’est assez naturellement que j’ai eu envie de monter un événement de type Startup Weekend à Strasbourg.

J’ai donc monté un projet dont les partenaires seraient les membres de mon réseau actuel : l’ENSIIE (où j’interviens justement sur un module appelé “Stratégie des Startups”), l’Exia CESI (où j’interviens également), Alsace Digitale (dont je suis membre fondateur et qui promeut un projet de Cantine à Strasbourg) et le CJD (dont je suis membre). Sans compter quelques amis comme Justine, Stéphane ou Thomas. Bref, un projet plutôt teinté “ingénieurs/entrepreneurs”. Nous sommes tous adeptes des méthodes de management à la Team Academy : équipe auto-organisée, grande liberté d’action, confiance et respect entre les membres de l’équipe.

Nous avons rencontré dernièrement une autre équipe qui se propose d’organiser un Startup Weekend Strasbourg. L’équipe est composée essentiellement d’étudiants et d’anciens de l’EM Strasbourg (Ecole de Management de Strasbourg). Bref, je dirais un projet plutôt teinté “managers”. Leur leader nous a expliqué son point de vue : il y a un chef, tout passe par lui et les autres membres de l’équipe doivent respecter les règles.

Autant dire que ça a un peu été le choc des cultures et que les premiers contacts ont été un peu douloureux ! Même si ça ressemble à cet affrontement séculaire entre ingénieurs et managers, on connaît vos attentes fortes par rapport au SWXSB et on est en train de monter ensemble un projet d’une belle envergure !

On devrait d’ailleurs bientôt vous annoncer une date définitive pour ce premier Startup Weekend Strasbourg !


]]> http://blog.strasslab.net/2011/05/18/startup-weekend-strasbourg-ingenieurs-contre-managers/feed/ 2 yannski http://blog.strasslab.net/2010/11/02/3-presentations-passed-the-1000-views-mark/ http://blog.strasslab.net/2010/11/02/3-presentations-passed-the-1000-views-mark/#comments Tue, 02 Nov 2010 13:58:10 +0000 yannski http://blog.strasslab.net/?p=588 ]]> I love to speak at technical events (or social events if you prefer), to share my knowledge (or better “our” knowledge, as I learn many things with the Novelys Team).

Usually, I host my presentations on slideshare (you can check all of them on the Novelys slideshare account).

I’m happy to announce that we have now 3 presentations that passed the 1000 views mark (or nearly).

“Long Polling with EventMachine” was recently highlighted as we opensourced Cockatoo, a simple chat server.

“Ruby et MongoDB dans la pratique”, Ruby and MongoDB in practice, was presented at MongoFR, the french conference on MongoDB.

“NoSQL” was presented during a “Last Thursday”, a monthly gathering of tech geeks here in Strasbourg.


]]> http://blog.strasslab.net/2010/11/02/3-presentations-passed-the-1000-views-mark/feed/ 1 yannski http://blog.strasslab.net/2010/10/15/1-idea-per-month-revival/ http://blog.strasslab.net/2010/10/15/1-idea-per-month-revival/#comments Fri, 15 Oct 2010 13:29:27 +0000 yannski http://blog.strasslab.net/?p=583 ]]> The energy and the enthusiasm at the last Startup Weekend Paris reminds me about the “1 idea per month” program I invented in the early days of Novelys.

The concept is very simple : everybody has tons of ideas every day. But usually you forget them or you say to yourself “maybe I’ll take care of it later”. That’s called procrastination. That’s why “1 idea per month” is born.

You take 1 idea and you take car of it during 1 month. You raise it. You grow it. Until it’s testable by others. A kind of Startup Weekend but during 1 month. The key concept is to constantly push the idea in the corner.

I will revive “1 idea per month”, starting next month. You can expect something testable at the end of November. Or, at least, I hope so Of course, feel free to join me !


]]> http://blog.strasslab.net/2010/10/15/1-idea-per-month-revival/feed/ 0 yannski http://blog.strasslab.net/2010/10/11/lets-fucking-do-it/ http://blog.strasslab.net/2010/10/11/lets-fucking-do-it/#comments Mon, 11 Oct 2010 15:19:01 +0000 yannski http://blog.strasslab.net/?p=572 ]]> “Let’s fucking do it” could have been the motto of the past week-end at Startup Weekend Paris. I’m really amazed at how much work has been done in our team during this week end and how much energy has been burnt

Qualifeed

So, we released Qualifeed yesterday. In this really really early version, Qualifeed will help you “master your top tweets”: you will get the list of your 10 top tweets based on their actual audience (your followers + the followers of your retweeters). Also, we’ll calculate for you a “Qualifeed score” based on the impact of some actions (if the users have clicked your included bitly URL for example).
As a bonus, you will also get :

• a pretty graph showing the evolution of your followers
• a Facebook integration allowing Qualifeed to track the evolution of your fans on some of your pages

Grand vision

Unfortunately, the final pitch didn’t work so well for us, but here is the Grand Vision of Qualifeed.
There are a number of websites already positionned on the “Twitter statistics” stuff (Klout.com or twitteranalyzer.com for example). Maybe we’ll add this kind of number computations or graphs in the future but it’s not our core business. Our core business is about helping companies, politics and community managers in their search of what’s working and what’s not, and, help them track the creation of value based on their social activity.

Our vision is to provide solutions of Social Influence Management and Social Influence Optimization to help trademarks, community managers, politicians, etc. to measure and continuously improve the ROI (Return of Investissement) of their social campaigns. The first step will be to provide a Social Activity Dashboard for our targeting customers.

Future ?

We’re currently discussing who will continue on the project and who will not. And also, how to reach some VCs and Business Angels. In the meantime, we’ll continue consolidating the actual app and its infrastructure (which had some scaling problems yesterday night, please excuse us).

I really want to thank all my teammates that made this week end a fabulous experience. I hardly recommend to anybody who is interesting in the startup world to participate to a Startup Weekend. There are several around the globe and I will certainly organize one in Strasbourg early 2011.

Tech note for the geeks

Qualifeed has been developped with Ruby on Rails and MongoDB. It has helped us make a webapp a reality in a week end and it helped us save a lot of sleeping hours.

Qualifeed team aka 12 angry men (and girls) :
Justine Adam @toutielicious
Capucine Surrel @supercapu
Brice Argenson @bargenson
Nicolas Blanco @slainer68
Jerome Etienne @jerome_etienne
Nicolas Hennion @nicolashennion
Yann Klis (me!) @yannski
Florent Merian @fmerian
Camille Roux @camilleroux
Matthieu Segret @MatthieuSegret
Quentin Tousart @quentin_t
Sylvain Theveniaud @JOBPass


]]> http://blog.strasslab.net/2010/10/11/lets-fucking-do-it/feed/ 3 yannski