One week from today I will be attending my first BarCamp. If you don’t know what BarCamp is, you can look at the web site to get some idea. Generally though BarCamp is described as an “unconference” or:
BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from participants.
August 25th is Houston’s 2nd BarCamp, and I am looking forward to attending BarCampHouston 2. If you take a look at the page for the Houston event you will see that quite a few topics of discussion have been proposed. The neat thing about a BarCamp is that the actual sessions are not really decided ahead of time. When the participants arrive they can add sessions they are interested in leading to the schedule, and sign up to attend the sessions that others place on the schedule which are of the most interest them. Neat concept that gives the people who actually attend the event the ability to plan the event themselves.
BarCamp in general has rules that state:
“Attendees must give a demo, a session, or help with one, or otherwise volunteer / contribute in some way to support the event. All presentations are scheduled the day they happen. Prepare in advance, but come early to get a slot on the wall. The people present at the event will select the demos or presentations they want to see.
Presenters are responsible for making sure that notes/slides/audio/video of their presentations are published on the web for the benefit of all and those who can?t be present.”
This leads to my current concern that I will not have anything to present on by Saturday. Which is maybe a good thing for my first time attending. I was going to try and write presentation on trying to get enterprise IT departments to start valuing aspects of web 2.0 and the social web. I have not had time to get things researched outside of my own personal experience though. I have had such a hard time, and been met with so many failures it was a bit disheartening.
Maybe it will work out for the best just to show up a bit early and help get things ready. The only thing I am really missing now is my new laptop, but maybe I will get lucky. I hate the idea of hauling around my M90 with its 10lb weight and 2 hour battery life.
Tags on Ma.gnolia: barcamp, houston, technology, gathering, conference
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[...] the morning at BarCampHouston, and open conference of technology enthusiasts in Houston. I wrote a bit about BarCamp last week. So far things have gone well, lots of interesting discussions [...]