The Evolution of the Data Cluster Party

One of the crazy smart individuals who used to frequent my bookstore was this physics grad named Flip Kromer. Like many other folks, I lost track of him when I closed the bookstore. Nearly a decade later, about the time data started to get really sexy (again), Flip emerged, with a curious website called Infochimps. I sent him a note to say hello and catch up. Soon after, I saw him at SXSW 2009. The buzz about Data was in the air and, although I couldn't make it, I heard quite a few stories -- mostly second-hand -- about Flip and the data-geek-out at Opal Divines. At SXSW 2010, the meetup grew into a full-on Data Cluster Party -- packed well beyond the fire code. For SXSW 2011, the bad boys of BigData at DataStax will be joining Infochimps as co-hosts, and GeekAustin will be managing the logistics. We have a huge venue and a few surprises in-store for the next party. Woot.

Although I'd heard several different versions, I was curious to know how the Data Cluster Party begin. so I stopped by the Infochimps office to ask Flip to give me the scoop.

Flip Kromer

It began with a data meetup in during SXSW 2009

Flip recalls how it started:

I saw that Simon Willison (@simonw) from The Guardian was giving a talk on, of all things, Zeppelins. Besides being one of the co-creators of Django, Simon is one of the driving forces behind the Guardian Open Platform -- a really awesome project that has done great things for Open Data.

I'm thinking: Holy Crap, Simon Willison is here. I'm going over to see him at BarCamp. Kirrily Robert, the community manager for FreeBase, said to me: Grab him by the ears. Let's go to lunch and Data-Geek-Out.

Then three or four other people approached me, asking: Is there room for one more Data Geek? The next thing we knew, we had six or so pretty interesting people. We decided to move the meet to the following night, move the event to a bar, and promote it a bit.

Overnight, between us telling people, and them in turn telling other people, we ended up with about twenty five people. We went to Opal Divines and got a few tables. Among the group were guys llike Blaine Cook (the architect at Twitter), Harper Reed, Evan "Rabble" (blog), and a whole bunch of the FreeBase crew. All these people, responsible for so much fantastic work, trekked all the way across town during SXSW to meet up. Clearly there was some un-met demand for data-centric stuff at SXSW.

The 2010 Infochimps Data Cluster Party -- and the infamous NoSQL smackdown

Flip continues:

The next year, during SXSW 2010, we decided to do it proper. We sent out invitations. We got sponsorships.

We had decided we were going to do these table discussions, but when Stu Hood from Rackspace told us about the idea for a NoSQL smackdown, we said: That's fantastic!

Stu represented Cassandra. To fill out the smackdown, we got Jan Lehnardt from CouchDB, we got Wynn Netherland, who is a big MongoDB user from Dallas, and a few others. We had been tipped off that Werner Vogels, the Amazon CTO, might show up. So I emailed him, saying: I'm not going to announce anything, but if you showed up, and you happened to be unable to sit there while folks are praising different nosql solutions, feel free to jump up and talk about Dynamo or SimpleDB -- no pressure, but you're welcome to do it.

Joseph Kelly, Infochimps co-founder, adds: The debate started and Werner was at the very back in the stairwell. He was like a boxer, pacing up and down. He started to get sweaty. No more than five minutes in, out comes Werner, this huge German guy, saying: No, No, No. You're telling me that you want to host your own database? You're stupid. -- and the gloves came off.

Joseph Kelly

Flip: The smackdown continued like a scene out of 8 mile -- totally unmoderated. The speakers would pass the mic back and forward like a group of seasoned rappers.

Joseph Kelly: There were two mics for four people.

Flip: I had multiple people tell me that was the best event they went to during SXSW. Yet the philosophy was simple: get a really good invite list of interesting people who span the data space, put just enough structure in the event so that people know what is going on when they show up. Don't have loud music. Don't invite the Social Media crowd. Just get out of the way and let people who admire each other's work talk and mingle.

What's in store for the 2011 Data Cluster Party

Like last year, there will be no schwag and no social media people -- just Data Geeks talking about Data. We know that quite a few people weren't able to attend last year because we maxed out the venue. So for the 2011 party, we've reserved Elysium for the evening. How many hundred Data Geeks fit into Elysium? Play it safe and RSVP now. The party will be free for all SXSW Interactive attendees.

We'll be releasing more details about the Data Cluster Party in the coming weeks -- but seriously, RSVP now

On the day of the party, we are also planning a full day of BigData presentations and workshops. If you are interested in sponsoring or presenting, send a note to lynnbender@geekaustin.org.