March is a Speaking Month

This month looks like a fairly packed schedule on my speaking calendar.

March 2nd

National Institute of Technology, Calicut (formerly REC, Calicut) is organizing Kerala’s biggest FOSS event. Big enough for the Chief Minister of Kerala to bestow his presence there. I know about FOSS as much as the Chief Minister does and that’s not why the institute had invited me. They’d like me to talk about the unconference model and blogging. A sort of a mini-blogcamp is being set up within FOSS event and they’d like this to be conducted in a more unconferencish mode.

March 5th

My last session on Digital Media will take place this Monday. This is the 5th straight year I’m teaching at the Madras Advertising Club. I love teaching at the AdClub ‘coz its unlike other colleges. The students are far more creative and enthusiastic.

March 24th

This came as a surprise. Cognizant is organizing a technology unconference for all its employees and considering the size of the company, the event is going to be massive. This is the first time I’m seeing a company organizing an uncon internally. Seen Saber conduct a HackDay before at Bangalore but never an uncon. I’m invited to open the second day of the event and looking forward to it.

March 25th

AlooTechie and WebChutney, one of India’s most creative digital marketing agencies is organizing a hands-on workshop on Podcasting at Delhi and they have invited me to conduct the workshop. A lot of marketing executives are expected to attend. A few weeks ago, I was invited by Pepsi to Gurgoan to talk to their entire marketing top brass and it was a fantastic experience. If that was any indication, this workshop is going to be quite a rocker.

Polaris Software runs an internal educational program called Nalanda University. They’d like to know more about the power of wikis and its various uses. It’d be interesting to share all the learnings from cool folks I met at WikiCamp.