Bay Area Mobility Forum
We just finished up the pre-forum forum meeting of the Bay Area Mobility Forum (BAMF). I hung around to drink more cause, well, I have a GPRS connection and it’s nice out :-) The meeting was actually really good. What we’ve decided to do is have a few relatively low-key events. One a month, for three or four months. Each time we’ll have a main topic, but have an “open mic” time when anyone who attends can harangue the audience about pretty much whatever they want (time limit in effect of course). The hope is that over the course of a couple of months we’ll manage to build up a bit of an audience, “build up critical mass” so to speak. And at that point we’ll plan for an event which has a format more like a standard conference. Multiple sessions on a number of topics. It was universally felt that we would like to bring together people from all the different part of the equation (technical, business, developers, manufacturers, standards organizations, carriers, end-users, etc) and provide a way for them to interact. But first we need to build up a group, which is best done in a more intimate setting than a conference normally affords. All in all, a very hopeful meeting. My sincere thanks to Ted, Erik, Spencer, and Russ for coming out to set down an outline for what I hope will grow to be a great community.