#yapcna

by Mark ‘mdk’ Keating & John ‘genehack’ Anderson

The fourteenth, annual, Yet Another Perl Conference North America (YAPC::NA) has officially opened its call for speakers on the conference website.

The event, to be held in the wonderful city of Orlando between 23–25th June 2014, is inviting speakers of all levels of ability and experience to submit to this event.

Our theme this year is “¡Viva Perl!”. As such, we will favor talks that embrace the theme when deciding which submissions will be presented. However, with a number of tracks over several days, there is a great deal of room on the schedule.

We are always particularly excited to promote talks that embrace diversity or are from neophyte community members. If you have never spoken at a Perl conference before, we would love it if this could be your first.

The Perl community, YAPC organisers, and The Perl Foundation embrace the principle of no-barrier to entry and as such are open to the submission of papers from people of any background. If you wish to discuss this further with the organisers please do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected], or to submit your abstract and use the organizer comment box to open a dialogue with the event organisers.

The deadline for submissions is midnight EST on 15 February 2014. Please note that early submissions will have more time to discuss their requirements and acceptability with the conference staff and the presentation selection committee.

This YAPC we've provided a hack-a-thon space for the entire week. Come meet, hack, contribute! Below is a picture of some hard working perl hackers who may need company. You can find the hack-a-thon at Thompson (TCC) floor 2 room 2.122

The YAPC::NA banquet and game night will be happening at The Stage on 6th Street at 6:30pm on Tuesday night. If you bring your games (board games, card games, whatever kind of games) to the conference in the morning, they will be shuttled to the Game night just after the Lightning Talks.

Immediately after the lightning talks, catch the shuttle in the LBJ parking lot and it will take you directly to game night. Drinks will be served when you arrive and dinner will be served shortly afterwards.

Dinner will be catered from Salt Lick BBQ. Not to worry, there will be a vegan option.

Have the appropriate amount of fun!

Howdy YAPC::NA attendees!

This is Jonathan "Duke" Leto here. The main YAPC::NA conference begins tomorrow. If you are driving to the conference location (The Thompson Conference Center) make sure you park in LOT 40. Again, make sure you park in LOT 40.

If you park in LOT 39, which is close, you will be entering a world of pain. You don't want that. For your visual pleasure, here are some pictures of the parking lot entrance.

Tomorrow is training and the first day of the Hackathon. If you're not in training and you've never been to a hackathon, all you need to do is show up and volunteer. There will be plenty of projects in need of help and people to show you how you can.

How to get there: You can find all of the points of interest for YAPC in this handy dandy google map: http://www.yapcna.org/yn2013/map.html. You want to go to the Thompson Conference Center tomorrow. A close up can be seen here: http://goo.gl/maps/tPSF6. Note that parking is in lot 40 not lot 39. Parking is free. 

How to get your WiFi fix: The SSID is ‘attwifi’. You’ll use the coupon code that’s on your badge. This will be provided tomorrow if you attend an official event.

The Arrival Dinner: Hula Hut is out of seating. If you didn’t manage to get a spot, we encourage you to join the Anti-Arrival Dinner or form your own social gathering.

See you soon,

Hi, all. We're looking for some volunteers to help out with the conference. YAPC is a community conference, more than just about every other tech conference today. It is through community involvement that we have a conference at all. It is in this spirit of community and camaraderie that we come to you today to ask for volunteers. If you've ever wanted to help run a YAPC but didn't want to have to take care of everything, or didn't want all the responsibility involved (and there is a lot of it), now's your chance. If you've wanted to help out in some small way but weren't sure where to start, this is your chance!

What follows is a list of things that just about anyone can do. Please feel free to respond with any interest you have in helping out. We thank you for helping to make this YAPC amazing.

We need people to be in each room for each talk to make sure that speakers get off to a smooth start. This includes making sure their laptops work properly (and seeking help if not), setting up the microphone, and signalling them as they approach the time limit for their talk. I've found a tablet with a big "5 MIN" written in a word processor works well. The idea is to give 10, 5, 2, and 1 minute notices for longer talks, and 5, 2, and 1 minute notices for shorter talks.

We need people to monitor the sound in each room during each talk. This will preferably need to be someone who's familiar with audio kit, and is probably the most technically demanding item on this list.

We need people to monitor the LiveStreams to make sure that things are proceeding smoothly and to let us know if / when things go pear-shaped.

We need folks to greet / redirect / guide attendees to their destinations on Monday morning. Ideally this will be people who have tablets with maps of the area to show people where to go and how to get there. There are other ways to do this, of course, and the above is just one tested and known-working approach. This also includes people standing outside LBJ and making sure people reach the registration desk, which brings us to the next point.

We need people to coordinate registration on Monday morning, which opens at 7 AM. Yes, it's 7 AM, and it's a crime against nature. However, there is a major perk for this position: every single person needs to pass through registration. Every single attendee. This is a unique opportunity to meet new people and make connections with a large part of the Perl community. If you've ever wanted to have a good reason to talk with someone in the Perl community, this could be it!

We need people to shepherd folks to / from the busses and into The Stage for Tuesday night. This will help make sure everyone arrives where and when they need to be there.

We need people to coordinate setting up and tearing down at The Stage early Tuesday and late Tuesday, respectively.

UPDATE: We're sold out.

We currently have 103 people paid to attend the arrival dinner Sunday at Hula Hut. We have reserved and paid for 100. Technically They can seat 120 and we've left registration open to allow this. However, we need to notify them of the additional attendees prior to Sunday. Registration is now closed.

If you would still like to attend, please email [email protected] by the end of the day and we will get you added to the list if space allows.

Thanks,