The event will take place on Sunday, 16th November. Please mark your calendars. (checked to make sure no festivals or cricket matches happens on the day. The 2nd ODI Ind vs Eng takes place the next day).

The way to go is really into niche unconferences. A bunch of young techie entrepreneurs have planned an event where mashup enthusiasts can come together and try out new stuff using Yahoo! Pipes. I spoke with Bhasker Kode, one of the brains behind the event and he tells me that the event will be a combination of a ‘talking heads’ and ‘hack nights’.

The event is taking place this Sunday (December 23rd). Yup, too short a notice. Ideally a month’s notice would have been better for the word to spread around.

Interestingly, the event is taking place at Koyambedu, a place better known for having Asia’s biggest vegetable & fruit market than for anything technology. I’m not complaining though. It’s closer home and for the first time I don’t have to travel all the way to the IT corridor to attend a tech event.

Check out http://pipescamp.pbwiki.com for more information.

For all you aspiring Video Podcasters and Short Film Enthusiasts, please thank your stars for FilmCamp is coming to Town.

FilmCamp is a two day event that’s meant as a platform for independent film makers and podcasters to learn about the process of film making: Direction, Screenplay, Storyboarding, Shooting and Editing. This page has detailed information on the nitty gritties of what you can learn.

It’s an awesome initiative and especially useful for struggling video podcasters like me. I’ve been toying with the idea of getting professional at video podcasting but constrained by many things. I’ve been longing for networking with fellow enthusiasts which prompted us to start the Tinker Meetups. Quite successful and should have seen more editions. FilmCamp is a far more advanced version of it. Take a look at all the press coverages.

The event is on 8th & 9th at Chennai. The exact venue hasn’t been mentioned yet. For me, the dates clash with a travel plan and I’m grinding my teeth. I missed attending both KAMP & FilmCamp Bangalore for personal reasons and would hate to miss the Chennai edition. Should work out an alternative.

Check out www.FilmCamp.TV, especially the page about the founders and you’ll know why it’s really worth it.

The new version of Knowledge Management India website launched today and it’s way better than the old version. It’s in time for their really big annual event called the ‘KM India 2007 : Knowledge Summit’.

One of the reasons I’m excited about it because I’ve been invited to speak at the event and share my learnings about Unconferences. I’ll be teaming up with the wonderful Raj Datta, General Manager – Knowledge Management, Mindtree Consulting to speak on the topic ‘Creating Knowledge through Conversations: Social Networks, Unconferences, Knowledge Cafes’.

I absolutely adore the topic and I’ve been a firm believer in the concept of Unconferences as a learning methodology. The success of SearchCamp which took place over the weekend is another example why it’s an awesome to get the crowd involved in the learning and sharing process. It’ll be an awesome opportunity for me to distill all the learnings I’ve had in conducting nearly half a dozen major unconferences so far. I can’t wait for the session.

The program schedule looks a killer. Awesome speaker list too.

The event is taking place at Le Meridien, New Delhi on November 14th till 16th.

Namita Jagadeesh has a nice write up about UnConferences on Mint, the new business newspaper from The Hindustan Times in partnership with The Wall Street Journal.

The article is nicely titled ‘Start(up) Networking‘, focusing on the networking and ideas exchange that is the mainstay of such events. Nice read.

Yesterday, both Times of India and DNA newspapers carried news about our group playing the new sport ‘Ultimate Frisbee’. Ever since, Membership requests multiplied. While generally that’s a good thing, sudden growth isn’t good for a new sport. Manu, who brought the game from the US to ISB and then to Chennai, has a few good points.

The game can accommodate 14 members (7 a side). Anything more, and people will have to wait in the sidelines. and that’s no fun.

It’s a new game and it takes awhile to master the nuances.. Sure, the rules are simple but one needs sufficient play time to get better at the game. But we play only one hour every week and that’s not much.

Taking a few other points into consideration, it was decided to close down any new registrations for a couple of months. And we even had to gently turn down a request from The Hindu to do a story.

(Image from Sriram Iyer)

The article also mentions about the Unconference book, which has been seeing a slow but a steady progress.

The article carries a lot more credibility because, its author, Sudhir Syal has attended unconferences and is also helping organize a couple of them.

There’s also been some interesting learning based on feedback from Lisa Heft, a contributor to the unconference book project from the US. Open Space Technology, the original form of what we now known as unconferences, has been in existence since 1985. Wow, that’s for two decades. And most of us think its a recent phenomenon. Or at least I thought so, until we started the book project.

And its just not the technology industry that’s using the unconference format. Lisa adds, “It is something that has been around for a long time across the world and in a huge diversity of industries, cultures, and countries”.

Who would’ve thought!

Also, it looks like The Hindu would not credit the photographer whose photo has been used in the article. In spite of Sudhir, the author, taking the effort to get permission to use the photograph. It may have been an oversight, though.

But a huge thanks to The Hindu for giving unconferences main stream coverage. It can do wonders with getting better participation and better support from corporates.