What to Bring

• A great presentation!
• Multi-outlet power strips. Plug-ins are always in short supply. Be a friend and share the power.
• WiFi/EVDO — The site will have free WiFi (you’ll receive a temporary password on-site. However, like most tech events, you may want to bring along your access card as a backup plan
• Business cards. Get some free ones (minus shipping) from VistaPrint if you need to.

Recommendations for Speakers

• In each conference room there will be:
  • Dell workstation with MS Office and USB support (if you just want to show up with a presentation on a thumbdrive)
  • Power
  • Wired ethernet (temporary on-site password to be provided)
  • Audio connection for your laptop
  • VGA connection (NOTE: Laptop users please bring appropriate adapters)
  • VGA connection to projector with the following resolutions: (800×600, 1024×768 [best], 1280×768
  • Document projector
  • DVD Player
• A volunteer will be present in each presentation room to help you with your A/V needs, but please ensure that your computer is in good working order.
• General Presentation Tips / Guides
  • Avoid sales pitches, but do show your new products/technologies — There is a fine line between “marketing” and “tech demo”
  • Avoid long winded introductions, keep it short and simple.
  • Plan your talk for plenty of time for questions and discussion. Keep your presenting time to between 30 and 40 minutes (Sessions are one hour with 15 minute breaks)
  • If you are going to show code, think about font-size and color scheme. If you are unsure, comment below and we’ll make some recommendations
  • Practice your talk if you’ve never given it before.
  • Have a copy of your presentation/code/files on a USB thumb drive in case your computer has a problem on the day.
  • Generate your slides in PDF form or post them online for attendees to review after your talk.
  • Please consider releasing your presenation in Creative Commons license.

Tags and Tracking

• Use the tag ‘BarCampTampaBay’ for photos/videos/documents/slideshows.
• Use the hashtag ‘#bctb’ for Twitter tracking.

IRC Backchannel

You can talk with your fellow BarCamp Tampa Bay-ers (or listen in if you can’t make it in person) in #barcamptampabay on irc.freenode.net

Sample Schedule

Saturday sample schedule
8:30 Registration starts on Saturday
8:45 Scheduling starts
9:00 First four 45 minute sessions
10:00 2nd four 45 minute sessions
11:00 3rd four 45 minute sessions
11:45 Lunch break until 1 PM
1:00 4th four 45 minute sessions
2:00 5th four 45 minute sessions
3:00 6th four 45 minute sessions
4:00 four 30 minute sessions
4:45 four 10 minute rants
5:00 end of Dev Day … off to In-Between Party

As you can see from the sample schedule for Saturday, there are 24 slots for 45 minute sessions, 4 sessions that are half-hour, and 4 rant sessions of about 10 minutes. If there are other topics that do not make it on the schedule, there are opportunities to still be heard/present in the foyer, outside, and in an overflow room (if not being used).