One of the most enjoyable parts of my job (of which there are many) is organizing #geomob, our quarterly event for location based service devs. Today we posted the speaker list for our next event which will be April 25th. The format of the event is very straight forward - we get four to six speakers, each of whom presents with slides for 10-15 minutes and then takes questions for 5 minutes. Afterwards we all go to the pub and discuss with drinks paid for by the sponsors.

We try to get a diverse mix of speakers from big companies, start-ups, academia, or even the arts, but really the only qualification is that they have something vaguely interesting to say about something related to geo. Usually (but by no means always) the bigger the company of the speaker the more boring the talk, the stuff from the academics, artists and start-ups is typically where it gets most interesting. We try to keep it informative but not overbearing. Talks are intentionally kept short, the idea being that if someone wants to get into the detail they should do so at the pub.

Our April lineup looks very strong, I’m especially looking forward to Phillip Ronnenberg’s talk about OpenPositioningSystem. If you’re in London on April 25th and interested in geo please join us.