BarCamp Philly 4

What do you do?

I work at Thomas Jefferson University for two labs. For one, I build microscopes and write the software to drive them. For the other, I analyze large biological datasets from sequencers and microarrays. My daily work involves dangerously high voltages, lasers, and gigabytes of data.

What do you wish you did?

Wrote more software, analyzed bigger datasets, and/or used bigger lasers.

Have you ever been to a BarCamp before? If so, which one(s)?

Nope, this will be my first.

If you were to lead a session, what would it be about?

Getting started with public scientific datasets. Data used by scientists to do cutting edge research is available to high school kids. Contemporary science publishing is changing for better or worse, and open data is a result of both collaboration and regulation.
Ever wonder where CSI gets all those pretty spinning molecules?

Give us one interesting fact about yourself!

I never lived more than 4 years in one place as a kid.

Got a website or blog?

Not at the moment.

Twitter?

Don’t have one.

What do you do?

I work for a company called Verilogue, which collects and transcribes the in-office dialogues between physicians and patients. There’s a lot of discussion today about the healthcare system, but the goal of Verilogue’s research is to provide a more realistic idea of what the relationship between physicians and their patients is REALLY like.

Tech/data-wise, the challenge is this: We have over 65,000 recordings and transcripts, and it’s my job to make all of that unstructured data meaningful for our analysts, without them having to read through hundreds of conversations to get at some topic that they want to investigate. Towards that the team and I have designed various advanced searching tools, data visualization and semantically-aware indexes all with the goal of serving up quality results to our users searches.

What do you wish you did?

Everything, just like any other crazy creative person.

But actually, as a matter of fact, I’m going to get my chance to do one thing that I’m very interested in doing: contribute to anthropological and linguistics research. I’m in the planning stages of developing a research-oriented clone of Verilogue’s database, which will make it possible for this one collection of transcriptions and recordings to be annotated by research teams from fields as far flung as ethnography, healthcare outcomes research, formal syntax, discourse analysis, psychology, phonology, automatic speech recognition, and voice synthesis.

Have you ever been to a BarCamp before? If so, which one(s)?

Nope!

If you were to lead a session, what would it be about?

Text clustering algorithms in Python, statistical computing in R or maybe leveraging Lucene indexes with the semanticvectors package.

Give us one interesting fact about yourself!

I’m painted on the side of the Philadelphia International Airport, as part of the mural “How Philly Moves,” because, you know….I move.

Twitter?

@boblannon

What do you do?

Online business, websites, sales setup, backup, iPhones, “jimmy-rigged just make it work” techniques, advice, and consulting.

What do you wish you did?

Same as above, maybe a cool SaaS support product eventually and more tortilla chips in my life.

Have you ever been to a BarCamp before? If so, which one(s)?

Nope.

If you were to lead a session, what would it be about?

Overcoming technical hurdles for newbie solo/online businesses, maybe.

Give us one interesting fact about yourself!

I’ve had 8 knee surgeries.

Got a website or blog?

itarsenal.com

Twitter?

@robgranholm

What do you do?

I’m a client relations manager at Poptent. I also co-head up our top secret research arm, Poptent Labs.

What do you wish you did?

Oh, I don’t have to wish, I somehow landed my dream job here at Poptent.

Have you ever been to a BarCamp before? If so, which one(s)?

I have not, but I have only heard good things.

If you were to lead a session, what would it be about?

How to get users to do what you want, the way they want.

Give us one interesting fact about yourself!

I can hang, suspended from ceiling, by one ankle on a rope. For realsies.

Got a website or blog?

www.poptent.net/user/liz.macdonald

Twitter?

@lizmacdonald

What do you do?

Project Manager at Poptent.net
DIYer of Household Decor
Drinker of all the beer

What do you wish you did?

Professional pastry taster, of course.

Have you ever been to a BarCamp before? If so, which one(s)?

Never! This will be my BarCamp coming out party.

Give us one interesting fact about yourself!

I’ve moved 11 times in the last 9 years. I’m apparently a nomad.

Got a website or blog?

ohjessicamarie.com

Twitter?

@ohjessicamarie

He is theoretically older than this now.

What do you do?

I’m a programmer. I work at Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS) and most of my current work consists of replacing manual processes with (sometimes custom) command line tools. These processes typically involve retrieving and processing hundreds of gigabytes of data a day.

What do you wish you did?

I wish I ran my own online business – solo or with two or three other people. Basically, I want to be like Marco Arment (@instapaper) and Maciej Ceglowski (@pinboard).

Have you ever been to a BarCamp before? If so, which one(s)?

The past three in Philly.

If you were to lead a session, what would it be about?

Setting up integration tests for command line applications.

Give us one interesting fact about yourself!

I can speak pretty fluent Spanish.

Got a website or blog?

hectcastro.me

Twitter?

@hectcastro

What do you do?

Work a full time job to pay the bills, go to grad school part time when I can, but mostly I write, game, and write about games. I also wrote a novel recently.

What do you wish you did?

I wish I could write about games as a full time job, or just get paid to write, period. I would love to be a successful novelist.

Have you ever been to a BarCamp before? If so, which one(s)?

No!

If you were to lead a session, what would it be about?

I could lead a talk about writing, or gaming, or games journalism, or the local game development scene, which I love and support.

Give us one interesting fact about yourself!

After a 16 year hiatus, I am addicted to Dungeons & Dragons again.

Got a website or blog?

www.warpzoned.com

Twitter?

@toits

What do you do?

Designer by trade, artist by nature, painter by passion, collaborator by desire, creative by DNA. Fine Artist, Graphic Designer, Illustrator, Designer of Merchandise, Accessories and Apparel.

What do you wish you did?

I wish I did exactly what I am doing now but would love to license more of my art and designs to various products and companies as well as collaborating with the worlds of fashion, industrial design and interior design.

Have you ever been to a BarCamp before? If so, which one(s)?

The past two years here in Philadelphia!!

If you were to lead a session, what would it be about?

Scartch. The art of collaboration without rules… and drinking Scotch. (Scotch + Art = Scartch).

Give us one interesting fact about yourself!

I do not go a day without creating at least one thing. Probably why I have @500+ paintings sitting in my house right now.

Got a website or blog?

seanmartorana.com

Twitter?

@SeanMartorana

What do you do?

I’m a consultant with Chariot Solutions – which means I get to work with super smart people and solve awesome problems.

What do you wish you did?

Aw man that is a tough one. I love what I do.

I guess my dream would to be to have the money and resources to be a true Philanthropist. Not in todays terms, but in the true sense of the word.

“Caring, nourishing, developing, and enhancing human potential.”

Maybe I’d settle for helping those who can’t – but want help themselves.

Have you ever been to a BarCamp before? If so, which one(s)?

Yeppers, 2010.

If you were to lead a session, what would it be about?

Something on iOS or Android, maybe on how to successfully sit around and drink beer.

Give us one interesting fact about yourself!

I’m the husband of an awesome wife – who spends her free time rescuing and helping surrendered dogs find their forever home.

It’s heart breaking but rewarding work. I couldn’t do it.

Got a website or blog?

kgriff.posterous.com

Twitter?

@kgriffin

What do you do?

I build compute clouds. I’ve been involved in building four Amazon EC2 competitors; two currently in production, two in continued development. I’m also a contributor to OpenStack, an open source cloud computing solution.

What do you wish you did?

Sleep. More sleep would be awesome.

Have you ever been to a BarCamp before? If so, which one(s)?

Philly, 2009 (and sponsored, woot!)

If you were to lead a session, what would it be about?

Business bootstrapping.

I bootstrapped my business to a mixture of failure/success. I’d tell people how I failed, how I learned from these failures, and how I leveraged my experiences to success.

Give us one interesting fact about yourself!

I’ve traveled over 100,000 miles this year…

BONUS: my twitter/facebook/etc. avatar (& the photo I’ve uploaded) is from the 2009 Philadelphia BarCamp.

Got a website or blog?

eric.windisch.us

Twitter?

ewindisch