Natasha D'Souza

I attended the Ottawa Web Weekend and it’s was a blast. It was held at The Code Factory. There are a tonne of great ideas and lots of great energy in the room. There were over 30 people in the room!!!

The session started off with introductions – who we were and what team we were in for the weekend. Next came the ideas that were captured on the white boards. Then came the complex task of narrowing down the selection. Some ideas were grouped together and we went around the room discussing the pros and cons of each.

The other factors that we had to consider were

• the skills of the people participating. Some ideas needed more of one skill than we had e.g. more than 2 flash programmers

• the idea had to be productized in a weekend

• patents and the cost associated with filing them

• patent infringement

With all of these great ideas floating around we had to come up with a strategy of finalizing the idea. We agreed to discuss each group of ideas and spent a few minutes discussing it. For, against and how to make money.
Then came the method of voting. We each had 3 stickies and we got to pick our top 3. It was apparent that the G and A were the most popular. We then split up into G and A.

Then each split further, as eight per group is a good discussion size. So four groups in all, 2 for G and 2 for A.
Each group hashed out their idea further from a technical point of view as well as business. We then pitched our ideas further and then a final vote. The majority went for the A.

So we ended the day with the groups e.g. technical, business splitting up and planning how to start on day 2.

Here are some more pictures. Stay tuned for further updates from the weekend.