OH Habari

This website is powered by Habari. Habari is powered by people just like you and me. We’ve been working on Habari for a little over two years now, and it’s every bit as fun and satisfying as it was when we first got started. Our community has grown from just a couple friends to a worldwide group of smart, passionate users and developers.

This fall, we’re planning the first in-person Habari get-together, an opportunity for people using and working on Habari to meet one another. We’ve always said that community is greater than code, so this little conference is a terrific opportunity to better cement friendships, and bolster our community.

The date of our little event will be September 12. This is fairly arbitrary, and was decided mostly because Michael will be in the States at that time anyway. It was generally agreed that it was extremely unlikely that many of us would be able to go to Australia any time soon, so the Habari get-together should capitalize on Micheal’s existing travel plans. :)

Now the big challenge is: what the heck do we call this little shindig? It would be easy to call it something like HabariCon or BarCamp: Habari or similar. Michael’s been advocating HabariBar to indicate the (intended) barcamp nature of the event, but also to play on the notion that all the real fun at such events happens at the bar afterwards, anyway! Plus, it’s a unique name that isn’t likely to get confused with other barcamps or unconferences.

But Owen complained recently that

As a tech people, we need to stop using "pod", "foo", "bar", and "camp" in the names of events we expect serious people (with $) to come to.

Even though we're not going to be charging admission for our event, I share Owen's opinion. The "Camp" suffix, and the Foo|Bar|Pod prefixes are tired. They don't adequately explain to the general public just what the event is, or why they should consider attending. Granted, any Habari event isn't necessarily going to be interesting to the general public, but we (or at least I) would like to have an open event such that curious folks could come learn and participate.

But the alternatives aren’t much better. First Annual Habari Conference, Habari Extravaganza and the like provide as poor a description as anything else. This will be, at least for this year, a small-ish event of people who mostly know one another online, and are looking to establish real-world connections with one another.

This first Habari event will take place in Columbus, Ohio. Why? Columbus makes a reasonable middle ground for many of the folks who have expressed an interest in attending. Mostly, though, because I’m here, and I’m coordinating it! I thought a clever idea would be to name our (hopefully recurring) event after the location in which it takes place. Thus, this first Habari event could be OH Habari! If shep ever hosts an event, we can call it MO Habari! And if any Hawaiian Habari users want to organize something, we could have HI Habari!

Alas, this format falls down for international locations. If h0bbel hosts, we’d have NO Habari, which might not be the best naming choice.

What sorts of event names can you think of that might catch your interest sufficiently that you would consider spending a couple hours to learn more about Habari? What sorts of names can you think of that don’t actively exclude folks, or discourage participation? We (or at least I) don’t want this to be a closed party, just for long-time Habari developers.