I haven’t found an obvious translation for the term “unconference” which describes conferences organized and led by the participants themselves. The first conference of the ALE Network (Agile Lean Europe) couldn’t have been better titled. Indeed, since XP2011 in Madrid (and damn, I need to write my feedback from May 12th because it deals with it a lot) and the launch of the first conference ALE 2011 in Berlin under the -enormous- impetus of Olaf Lewitz we can literally see a conference emerge with a target of 200 participants, with 3 months of preparation and 40 organizers. A challenge. Unthinkable on paper, but the facts show that it seems to work. Everything is managed through the “cloud” (with Basecamp, Mindmeister, Google apps & Skype). The outpouring of energy that we observe is astounding. It feels like there are Skype calls across all of Europe every evening. It’s downright mind-blowing. I was telling some people that it gives me the impression of being in a peloton of cyclists on a serious climb, and suddenly being completely dropped by an acceleration of the group (because I’m humbly trying to participate, but I assure you that due to lack of time I’m not up to par).

The nature and enthusiasm around this event drives me to encourage you to register and participate (even if naturally you’ll need to understand English, our esperanto whether we like it or not).

To do so you can pre-register here: http://ale2011.eu/pre-registration/_and get a 50 euro discount (and for info I got myself a Paris/Berlin round trip flight for 115 euros …).

You can also submit your own presentation (in English as well)

http://ale2011.eu/call-for-papers/

Finally, sponsors are naturally welcome

http://ale2011.eu/sponsors/ (already Nokia, Agile42, JBBrains, Pair Coaching and Agile Alliance have come forward).

I’m going to try to translate into French the most important texts (and the press documents) don’t hesitate to send me information that might interest you on this subject.