Side project beget side projects. At least that’s the case with OpenConferenceWare, an impressive proposal and scheduling system developed Igal Koshevoy and Reid Beels.
While the name may of the system—affectionately dubbed OCW—may not be familiar to you, it’s pretty likely you’ve come into contact with it.
Why? Because It’s the system that Igal and Reid developed to help them manage a couple of other side projects with which they’ve been critical components: Ignite Portland and Open Source Bridge.
That’s right. You’re probably already an OCW user. If you’ve ever submitted a proposal or commented on a proposal for Ignite Portland or Open Source Bridge, you’re soaking in it.
And now, they’ve released some new features that make the system even cooler than it was already. So OCW already had proposals, speaker bios, private messaging, track management, and schedule layouts. But now it also has subevents and—my favorite—favorites, which allow you to build personal schedules.
Once you’re logged in, you’ll be able to select the star icon on any page that displays sessions to mark your favorites. Then, click the “My Favorites” link in the sidebar to view your list, and download or subscribe to it in your favorite calendar program.[HTML2]
What’s really great about this is that everyone’s favorites are available to share and browse. You can see mine here. So go ahead, mark some sessions and let your friends know. It’ll make stalking each other in the conference halls that much easier.
Think this is cool? Well, this isn’t the only magic on which these two have collaborated. There’s also Calagator, our favorite calendaring tool. Igal and Reid have been a huge part of that development as well.
If you’re interested in deploying OCW for your events, the source code is open source, so OpenConferenceWare source is available on Github. If you want to see OCW in action, visit the Open Source Bridge schedule.
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