StoryofaStartup.com

The suggestions in my last post haven’t proven to be particularly popular (see trackbacks on that story), but I think my tone may have been misinterpreted.  As I posted in the comments on the Remarkk blog:

What I was trying to suggest, was that perhaps another event could grow out of the current structure that could better serve those looking for people and those looking for work. When a student (or anyone else) has something cool to show, they should by all means, but I would rather see projects demoed that people are passionate about than a project someone created to audition for a job. That can be hard to determine of course, but if there was a more formal jobfair type event for this community, perhaps people wouldn’t feel like they had to demo just to meet people who might hire them. I’m not entirely sure if that’s how some people feel, but I’m hoping my post at least opens a dialogue.

There have been 11 Democamps now and we’ve seen everything from polished products (Bubbleshare, Nuvvo, Idee’s products) to pseudo case studies (Paruba, 2ndSite’s Funnel) to evangelists (Perl, SmallTalk) to school projects.  Now I haven’t looked through all of the Democamp wikis and done a detailed study, but it feels to me as though the earlier Democamps had a greater variety in the demos that were shown.  That might be partly due to the first come first serve sign up process and I think it might also have something to do with how popular Democamp has become.  I know of at least a few groups that have decided not to show for competitive reasons.  That was less of a problem when the group was smaller and close knit.

Maybe I’m over thinking things.  The original idea behind Democamp was that it would be an opportunity for the Toronto tech community to show off the cool things they are working on.  As mandates go, it’s a great one.  As long as we stick to that and the people who sign up to demo are doing so in good faith, we should be fine.

I wasn’t at DemoCamp11 last night.  I was a bit under the weather, it’s been a very busy few weeks and I’ll be honest, the demos as a whole didn’t look that interesting to me.  I read the reviews Rohan and Martin wrote this morning and it appears that it was underwhelming.

I’ve been thinking a bit about the demos that I have liked and disliked from past DemoCamps.  I think there needs to be a philosophical discussion about DemoCamp to determine the direction it should take.  A recurring event from the last few DemoCamps has been the announcement that such and such company is hiring and at least one or two demos from students or freelancers who are essentially auditioning for a job.  Perhaps DemoCamp isn’t the best place for that.  Maybe we could have an Un-Jobfair?

As for DemoCamp itself, perhaps it doesn’t need to be every month.  Maybe it’s just me, but sometimes it feels like they’re happening every week.   Because there are space constraints, some sort of voting system for potential demos could be put in place.

I’m thinking out loud here, so any and all comments are welcome.

Earlier in the week Toronto’s Daily Bread Food Bank launched an online portal that let’s companies and other groups set up their own online food drive.  RedFlagDeals.com was one of the first groups to do so.   We set a modest goal of raising $1000, but the RFD community surpassed that goal in less than 24 hours, so we’ve set a new goal of $2500.  Right now we are at $1750 raised.  Any and all donations are appreciated and a tax receipt will be sent to you via email.  They even offer corporate sponsorship of smaller drives such as ours.

Please head to this webpage to give:
https://secure.e2rm.com/registrant/personalPage.aspx?EventID=8303&LangPref=en-CA&RegistrationID=248844