The planet-bound asteroid that is GDPR is landing in May, folks.

If you build digital products, it effects are looking to be far reaching, and the penalties for ignoring it are, in the true sense of the word awesome.

But, we let's be real - the principles behind the GDPR aren't that hard to understand, and if we've been able to build the internet to survive being nuked, we should be able to work this one out together too.

OMGDPR

Also, we already have ways to explore big, complicated topics like the GDPR together, and that's what we're going for with OMGPDR - a community-run, open space event, in Berlin.

If you're a practioner working on a website, digital product or service, and you're working make it comply with the changes to law associated with GDPR, this is a space to talk about it among your peers.

If you haven't started making these changes yet, and you're hoping to catch up, you're also welcome.

A community run, open space event

If you've never been to one before, open space is an event format where you, the attendees, decide the content on the day, by bringing your own subjects you'd like to talk about with peers, in the context of GDPR.

What follows is a set of lightly facilitated conversations to explore these subjects in smaller breakout areas, and capture the key insights, before culminating in a final session to share these back with the rest of the group before wrapping up and enjoying the rest of the weekend.

You can read more about the format here, and the schedule below:

We want all you folk coming to feel welcome and safe, and generally be excellent to each other, so we're running it under the Berlin Code of Conduct.

What this looks like for GDPR

So, if you care about the user experience of informed consent, you can propose a session to learn from other specialists looking into this. If you're interested in finding out how to check if you're compliant, you can do that too. If you want to talk about how reconcile the integrity of your backups, and the right to be forgotten, this is where to find others who care too.

If you've already spent a year in a team looking into GDPR in detail, or written a book on the subject (we know this describes a few people coming already…), here's a chance to share what you've learned, to talk about the pain points you had with others.

The rough schedule for the day

We're starting after lunch at 2pm, in Soundcloud's swanky offices. Doors open at 13:30, and we'll have soft drinks available. We won't wait for latecomers, so please be on time.

13:30 - Doors open

14:00 - Introductions and explaining the format

14:20 - Pitching session ideas

14:45 - Sessions start

17:15 - Wrap-up, and sharing back what we've learned

18:00 - Tables booked at the Brewdog bar, for continuing the discussion with new friends, over drinks and food (optional)

A note on diversity and inclusion

We really want this to be an inclusive event with people coming from a diverse set of communities, so we have diverse set of viewpoints to look at at an important subject. And well, there's no easy way around this - we're a couple of straight white dudes in tech, and our demographic is usually really well represented at tech events, which means we'd miss loads of really obvious stuff to cover if it was only people who were just like us at this event.

So, we're asking for your help to make it better, we're speaking at various events about this anyway, but if you're running a meetup and you're interested in one of us coming to your event to talk about it, please drop Chris a line, as a DM on twitter (@mrchrisadams) or through the contact link at the bottom of this page.

Thanks

Huge thanks to Soundcloud, for providing their space to run this, for free, and the various staff time for making it possible.