16.11.2010: UXcamp Ottawa 2010: Redefining the UX Community

Category: community     Posted by: cornelius     Discuss: view comments     Views: 1871

As some of you may be aware (my obsessive tweeting on this very subject during the two weeks leading to the event attests to this) the Ottawa UX community at-large is about to have an official gathering on Nov 27, 2010. Titled UXcamp Ottawa, the event is a one-day professional conference organized by a few volunteers that will combine both planned and unplanned (unconference-type) sessions.

In the spirit of the ever-popular barcamp model, the goal of the event is to bring people who are interested in creating better user experiences together, in an environment conducive to learning, sharing, open conversation and community building. The topics of discussion will include the usual suspects: user experience, user research, usability, information architecture, interaction design, service design, etc. But what you may not know is that UXcamp Ottawa follows in the footsteps of a few similar events worldwide (Washington, Berlin, London, Florence, Prague, Kiev, Seoul) and is also preceeded by three other Canadian dates.

The first such event in Canada was UXcamp Edmonton, and took place about a year and a half ago on July 18th, 2009. The brainchild of Cam Linke and my friend and fellow UXcamp Ottawa organizer Jess McMullin (who also organized CanUX from 2006-2009), UXcamp Edmonton was a free conference that brought together about 80 UX professionals from the Edmonton, AB area.

A few months later, on December 5th, 2009, the second Canadian incarnation of UXcamp was organized by David Drucker and J. Karen Parker in Vancouver, BC. The event brought together a community of another 80 or so participants and took place at the Vancouver Film School. Earlier this year (on March 24, 2010), the third Canadian installment of the event, UXcamp Quebec was also a success, bringing together about 25 UX professionals from Quebec City area.

Which brings me to UXcamp Ottawa, the fourth such event in Canada, and the first in the nation’s capital. When every ticket was sold out, 175 people (about an even split between public and private sector UX professionals) have signed up, waiting anxiously to fill the (indoor :O) auditorium of Ottawa U's Lamoureux Building. Incidentally, this makes UXcamp Ottawa by far the largest UXcamp event held in Canada. Among the highlights, UXcamp Ottawa will feature scheduled presentations by Derek Featherstone (FurtherAhead), Lorraine Chapman (Macadamian), Lois Frankel (CarletonU School of Industrial Design), Jane Stewart and Chris Wightman. In addition to the scheduled sessions, UXcamp Ottawa will also feature panel discussions and open sessions proposed by UXcampers during live on-site 60-second pitches.

What this means, is that we want to hear from you, Ottawa UXcampers. Be ready to ask questions, come prepared to pitch an unconference sessions, make new friends, and most of all, have fun. We certainly had a lot of fun putting the pieces together.

» Share article on: