• DC Conference Sprint

  last modified August 19 by cbc

When

Where

Why

What Are Sprints?

What Is A Sprint Like?

Should I Come?

Topics

More Information

Arlington Overview

Transportation

Food and Drink

When: Saturday and Sunday, October 11-12, 2008, 9am - 5pm.

Where: Arlington Career Center aka the "ACC"

Map of dining/transportation points of interest around the ACC

It's easy to get to on public transit, and there will be lots of other people going who can help you get there, or share a ride. It's only 5 miles away from the conference location. It's a simple Metro ride (to the Pentagon station) and then a short one mile on a bus from there. The Arlington Career Center is a regular hoster of Zope and Python sprints, as well as serving 1200 students per day during the week.

Why: See the sprint topics below!

What Are "Sprints"? Why Should I Come?

Plone is a volunteer project--everything from the marketing to the management to to the programming is done by a worldwide team of volunteers. Several times a year, we hold "sprints", which are friendly, low-stress, face-to-face volunteer events where our community--including new people--can come together to work on the project. Sprints are the best way to get involved in our community, learn about how things really work, and make social and business contacts.

What Are Sprints Like?

The sprint will have a few teams of people working on a task--making better marketing materials, writing new software, editing documentation, thinking of new ideas. There is at least one sprint leader, who will make sure that you have clear guidelines and get the help you need. We'll usually work from about 9 am until about 5 pm, but the sprints are more casual than formal--you can come for the parts you're able to.

I've Never Been to a Sprint. I'm Not a "Coder", Even. Should I Come?

YES! YES! YES! And even more YES. We need input from our users, our integrators, our new-to-Plone people. Your input is valuable and this is a great way for you to learn about and support the project (and if you're an aspiring consultant or looking for consultants, a great way to network!).

If you've never been to a sprint before and are semi-technical or technical (you know HTML and CSS and perhaps a bit of JavaScript or Python or PageTemplates), we'll have a special Beginners sprint where we'll combine learning with sprinting, so you can learn new skills explicity and try them out, in a friendly atmosphere.

If you're a non-technical person, you can help in any sprint--we always need testers, feedback, and more. And you can help in our Documentation sprint, where we need editors, designers, and information-organizers.

Topics

To propose a topic, create a page for it below, outline your topic within, and solicit engagement with others by listing yourself at the top of a team roster on your topic page. See some of the other proposals below for examples. If you propose a topic, be prepared to lead that topic at the sprint . Topic leaders will be responsible for maintaining their topic page, soliciting engagement of others on their team, preparing that team before the sprint, making a lead-in speech at the start of the sprint, and making a report-out speech at the end of each sprint day.

For questions, please contact Chris Calloway at cbc the at sign unc the dot mark edu.

Arlington Overview

Arlington County used to be part of DC but was ceded to Virginia in 1847. It's the smallest county in the United States by size, but has a diverse population of about 200,000. One in five residents were born outside the U.S.; after English, the most widely spoken languages are Spanish and Urdu. The county has some of the highest levels of education and income in the country. It's home to the Pentagon and Arlington Cemetery. Arlington's fairly urban, and well connected by bus, rail, road, and bike paths to DC and other jurisdictions.

Transportation

You can reach the ACC by bus ride from:

  • Metrobus 16 Pentagon City Metro (East Hayes Street exit; Yellow and Blue lines): get off at Walter Reed, turn Right on Walter Reed and head 1.5 blocks north, it will be on the left.
  • Metrobus 10B from Ballston Metro (Orange Line): there's a stop right out front before you get to Columbia Pike.

Cabs back to DC should be under $20 to most areas; Red Top is in Arlington, call 703-522-3333 for a pick-up. A 15% tip is conventional.

Food and Drink

Sprint planners are pleased to announce you will not need to leave the Arlington Career Center for breakfast or lunch. The famed Pupatella Neopolitan food cart will be on the premises for all your gustatory needs. Pupatella is renowned in the DC area for its pizzas, crepes, arancini, and pastries. We are especially excited about Nutella pizza for breakfast!

After the sprint each day, check the map. Within an easy walk are Thai, Salvadorean, Turkish, various Latino, Chinese, Italian, Greek restaurants, all reasonably priced. There's a Giant Food grocery store a block left on the Pike.

The closest bar to the ACC is the Olde Arlington Grille, attached to the Cinema and Drafthouse. Head right (south) from the ACC on Walter Reed 1.5 blocks, turn right onto Columbia Pike, and it's the 3rd storefront. They've got a good selection of beers on draft and decent bar food. A few blocks east on Columbia Pike around the back from Manee Thai is L A Bar, a small neighboorhood place that might be a bit noisy for tech conversations.

Most of the nearby restaurants serve beer, wine, liquor.