go to Mission Creek Festival in Iowa City

[chadwhitacre]

@geemus runs it.

The Mission Creek Festival is a week-long nexus of music, literature, food, art and now tech. It features a strong balance of national, international and regional creators performing and exhibiting their work in the cozy, intimate confines of Iowa City. We have stuff planned on all the way from April 1st through the 6th, but the tech stuff is focused on the evening of Friday the 4th and throughout the day on Saturday the 5th.

As Jacob alludes to, gittip is pretty awesome and I'd love to have more of the story around that shared. As we are all distributed in areas not traditionally associated with booming technology scenes, I suspect I'm not the only one who finds open source as a lifeline to colleagues and peers regardless of their location (or other demographics for that matte). Open source has been transformative to me personally as well as for my career. I think gittip and open company ideas could even take this further in ways that I think are amazing. So I'd love it if you would be interested in coming for a visit and sharing your experiences.

Would you join us? (just let me know if you have any questions)

[chadwhitacre]

Me:

Thanks for reaching out! I'm potentially interested. Can you tell me more about what the schedule is going to be like? What are you planning for the tech segment?

[chadwhitacre]

@geemus:

I'd be happy to share the tentative details.

There will be music throughout the week in the evenings, as well as some literature and film. Over the weekend these will continue, along with some food and the tech programming. You can get a bit better idea from last years schedule (though film/tech are new for this year) https://web.archive.org/web/20120922151042/http://missionfreak.com/schedule/

For tech, my plan is roughly this:

Friday April 4th:

• Evening food/drinks and lightning talks from local organizers about groups/events.

Saturday April 5th:

• Keynote, then 2-3 single-track talks on big picture issues from national speakers.
• Lunch on-your-own with suggestions on downtown food.
• 2-3 multi-track (probably just 2 tracks) concrete/local talks relating to morning, allowing attendees to choose what is most interesting to them.
• Public Keynote re-adjourning at a larger venue for a final public keynote (hoping for art genome) that draws broader connections between tech and the arts.

I have a few speakers pencilled in and I think you would be a great candidate for one of the single track morning talks. I gather that gittip is your primary income these days, so I'll also say that I think we should be able to subsidize your travel, if not cover it, but that is also in the somewhat tentative stage of things at present.

Hopefully that provides at least a bit more clarity here, but I'm certainly happy to answer any additional questions you might have.

Thanks for your consideration, wes

[chadwhitacre]

Me:

Thanks for the info. May I share this info publicly? I'd like to track this in a ticket.

[chadwhitacre]

@geemus:

I think that should be fine, as long as it is clear that much of that remains tentative. Thanks, wes

[geemus]

@whit537 thanks, certainly happy to answer any further questions you or others might have here (or in email).

[chadwhitacre]

@geemus I've got a few other events this winter/spring (Gittip company retreat; PyCon; OCI summit) that I need to prioritize money-wise. So, if you can cover my travel and lodging (I'm happy to sleep on a floor) then I can make it. If that doesn't work out I'll understand. :-)

[geemus]

Understood, would certainly still love to have you come. I'm not quite far enough along in the planning to guarantee we can cover things, but I'm pretty sure we can make this work. If you are interested and could pencil it in I can share more specific/definitive info as it becomes available to me. Sound good?

[chadwhitacre]

@geemus Sounds good. Keep me posted! :-)