No, this isn't my post about what it's like to work at SynthaSite.  Although I can say that I've had the most fun I've had in years working here so far.

SynthaSite has two positions open that I'd like to see filled with local geeks, both working on the community and marketplace aspects (ie, forums, blog, web site, and so forth) around the core SynthaSite application.   Both the positions involve coding and the usual amount of collaborative decision-making in a start-up environment, but one is slightly more "senior" and will involve additional liaising and planning and organisation.  You'd be based in our Gardens, Cape Town, offices.

Basically, that's it - two bright and cheery and passionate geeks with a diverse skillset (including, but certainly not limited to, PHP) wanted to work at a well-funded "Web 2.0" start-up in Cape Town.  We have the usual start-up environment with pay-you-what-you're-worth remuneration and other financial incentives, great equipment, good company lunch, nice location (near the 24-hours-Woolies-at-the-Engen in Gardens), good connectivity (well, for .za), and so forth.

Send direct to careers@synthasite.com or send me an email if you know me (or can figure out my email address).

Well, StarCamp's over - at least this time around.

I really want to thank some companies that helped us out to make the whole thing work out:

• The African Institute for Mathematical Studies (AIMS) were very gracious and generous hosts, and we were helped a lot by their staff and students over the two days.
• Quirk created and distributed the StarCamp T-shirt.  Send one email, have one phone call, and then all I had to do was follow the great feedback through the process.  All organised at the last possible minute because I left it so late, but delivered promptly and perfectly.  Thanks!
• AlterSage created a whole whack of name tags and generally cool stickers that helped us to know who each other were and occasionally what belonged to whom. 
  
• Sentient Communications gave us almost all of the cash towards two great lunches supplied by Kauai - everyone loved the lunches after spending so much time providing energy to their brains.  Or so I like to believe.
• The Western Cape Linux Users Group gave us a small amount towards the lunches, and also paid for all the cool drinks, coffee, and tea.
• ProsperIS for agreeing way back to provide logistical aid in terms of networking and power cables, projectors, PCs, and monitors, and making sure nobody wanted for anything like that.  (Updated: I can't believe I forgot to mention it!)

And the following people similarly contributed in ways that made the event happen at all, and happen as well as it did:

• Jonathan Hitchcock was my main partner in crime in organising StarCamp, even though he was busy in Johannesburg for some of it and learning for and writing a certification exam, and moved house on Saturday morning.
• Joey da Silva helped out with phoning and finding venues, and took on finding the best way to spend our food money (and got a better deal than I would have ever got), and dealing with my last-minute questions about where to get stuff, and so forth.
• Andy Rabagliati suggested AIMS as a venue, and organised things from the AIMS side for us, and generally helped towards keeping them happy.
• Deon Erasmus for delivering and taking back the stuff from ProsperIS, generally making himself useful, and for making everyone laugh at the "TEH TINK" license plate he bought.
• Nur Ahmad Furlong designed the StarCamp logo
• Christine da Silva and Tim Shier for being the first two people at the venue on Saturday to make sure every person who arrived got a T-shirt and a name tag.
• Stefano Rivera and Jeremy Thurgood for helping to set various things up (and for being the first two to sign up as attendees)
• Joe Botha broke the ice with an impromptu (and very interesting) talk on the state of telecommunications licensing in the recent past (since 1994 or so), and on the license conversion process currently going on.
• Glen Verran, Shaun O'Connell, Ian Gilfillan, Tim Shier, Simon Cross, Adrian Rossouw (currently homeless), Rafiq Phillips, Russell Cloran, and Adrianna Pińska all presented.
• Charl van Niekerk for coming all the way from George just to attend StarCamp (oh, and some other stuff too)
• Tim Allen, for convincing his friends from Princeton to give talks
• David Robinson and Alex Halderman, for giving up a day of their week-long holiday from Princeton in Cape Town, for presenting and talking about the topical issues of Net Neutrality and E-Voting.
• My "boss", Vinny Lingham, for talking a bit about his experience raising funding for our business, SynthaSite, and for bringing along a few people for a few hours before and after his talk.  And my other "boss" at SynthaSite, Brent, for letting me organise things, visit venues, and so forth on work time.
• My former colleagues from CareerJunction, Jam Warehouse and even earlier days, including Bryn Divey, Shaun O'Connell (again), Adrian Moisey,  and Alan Levin, for everything from moral support to continuously offering to help.

Wow, that's quite a few people - almost half the people that attended the event.  Which, I suppose, is how it is supposed to be - everyone pitching in and making it fun for themselves and for other people.

So far, the feedback has been very nice ("Well done!", "I really enjoyed it"), but perhaps not all that useful in terms of doing things better next time. I'll try to devise a way to get better and more feedback.
 
I'll have more to say about things after I spend the next few days sleeping, but I had an amazing time, met some cool people, got to spend time with some of my favourite people, and got all soppy watching everyone chatting with everyone else and forging and strengthening connections.  Got quite a few people interested in coming to GeekDinners as well - always nice to have new perspectives and experiences.

After a few weeks of organisation hell, StarCamp is finally here, and I can kick back and relax as it switches to self-organising.  Or something.

Anyway, we have some great speakers already signed up - from Princeton academics on Net Neutrality and E-Voting to my own boss just doing a favour for me, Vinny Lingham of SynthaSite on something about venture capital and/or start-ups, to user experience expert Phil Barrett talking about what he does, Rafiq Philipps on his experience at TED, and Norman Rasmussen on the future of the .NET platform.

We have copious amounts of free food (sponsored by Sentient Communications), and some free coffee (non-filter, unfortunately) and tea and so forth, a big LCD TV and a Wii and an XBox 360 for those who want to relax, and plenty of other stuff to hopefully keep people entertained.

So, even if you haven't signed up, just pitch up today (Saturday) between 9am and 5pm, or tomorrow (Sunday) between 10am and 4pm for as long or as short as you'd like and see what it's all about.

Okay, time to pack everything up and head to the venue, then.  Hope to see you there! 

The guys at Quirk are looking for StarCamp T-shirt designs from the community (in the self-organising style of the event itself) for the T-shirts they're sponsoring for StarCamp.

We may have left this a bit late, but there's a chance for a little glory if you're able to put something together for mid-day tomorrow.  Oh, and a free T-shirt, even if you can't make StarCamp yourself.

(Had a 10-minute chat with Tim Shier from Quirk at around mid-day today, and they seem really keen to be involved.  As usual, it might be too late, but we hope some of the QuirkStars are able to attend and give talks.  In addition to Rafiq's talk about TED, of course.)

So, StarCamp has a venue - we're having it at the African Institute for Mathematical Studies (hereafter simply AIMS).  That was a last-minute re-option after Andy heard of our plight at the Eccentric Eggplant GeekDinner.

Beyond that, since last I mentioned it, we've got sponsors lined up for T-shirts, name tags/stickers, and food, as well as some cash sponsorships that will cover some additional food and coffee.  Still need some help to make sure I don't have to pay for some stuff myself, but it's looking a lot better than even last week.  Will announce more when everything is 100% confirmed.

We've now got 62 attendees pre-registered (you can, of course, just pitch up on the day, but then you might not end up with food, a seat, or a T-shirt), and 16 talks pre-announced by some brave souls.  The topics are starting to round out now - at first they were mostly technical, but we're starting to get more about the business of technology as well, and I've been in contact with more people to try get some more interesting topics added.

One thing we don't have is enough video recorders - we have Jonathan Carter's one that has been used to tape GeekDinner, CLUG, and CTPUG talks in the past, but we could really do with another one (or two, and people to operate them).