If you haven’t come across the term before, barCamp is “an international network of unconferences“. The idea is that getting a group of interesting and interested people together in a relaxed and open environment will spur great ideas and good fun.
I went to barCampLondon2 last weekend to meet interesting people, and to be inspired. Here are a few highlights.
I met:
- A mechanical engineer, who is a genius at putting together LED arrangements to function as both input and output devices. He came to hear ideas about what people would like to see built, and how to best enable programmers to have ways of making his LED toys do more cool stuff.
- A white-haired Belgian doctor, who is looking for the best open source platform to get his project on virtual health care off the ground.
- A geek nomad, who has given up his permanent residence for the last few years to live in places that are beautiful and cheap, and have good connectivity. He encourages other people to consider doing the same, because as long as you’re online, does it matter that much where you are? He’s thinking about developing a site to let geeks know where other geeks are clustered, since we’ve all gotten a bit social lately, haven’t we?
- My first bona fide conference junkie. He was very entertaining.
I saw:
- Tom Coates speak on social software. I’m a bit burnt out on this topic at the moment, but his speaking style was so inspiring that immediately afterwards, I went downstairs and rewrote my presentation.
- An absolutely hilarious game called delicious salted, which is a variant of Pecha Kucha that involves a quick jaunt through your last 20 delicious links. Each site that you’ve bookmarked comes on screen for 20 seconds, and you have to explain why you chose to bookmark that site. Try it yourself - it’s very revealing!
I wish I hadn’t missed:
- A very clever way of using web applications like gMail, Google calendar, and flickr offline.
- The best-named mash-up ever - Flashr.
- An easy way of skipping over those annoying sign up forms (OpenID).
I hid:
- In the back of the improv workshop given by James Aylett. This, of course, means I’m going to have to sign myself up for an improv class now.
I presented:
- A process to get yourself into the Zone at work. I’m thinking of rewriting this as a blog post, because it’s kind of annoying to have to click through it! I was terrified at the time, having never done anything like that before. But fortunately it was a meaty presentation, so despite a complete lack of style in my delivery, I got a fairly positive response.
I noticed:
- A whole lotta ladies were there, for a geek gathering. We even had a queue in the loo!
All in all, it was a great weekend. If I go next time, I’ll be sure to do my presentation on Saturday, so that I can stay up all night playing Werewolf!
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February 21, 2007 at 12:44 am
Simon
There’s already been work done on the idea of like-minded indies sharing work space. Check out the Coworking concept:
http://blog.coworking.info/
https://coworking.pbwiki.com/
p.s. I think you were the person armed with a crutch, right?!
February 22, 2007 at 11:12 am
Janette
@Simon: Coworking goes nomad - brilliant idea! I’ve tried to further develop this idea in a post (see the next most recent one). I also liked your barCamp as incubator idea on your last post.
February 23, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Matt Westcott
I really enjoyed your talk - lots of really good advice, including plenty which seemed like common sense but not quite common enough for me to have thought of myself! Been trying to put it into practice this week, but haven’t yet had the heart to tell any of my colleagues “You see that ‘busy’ icon against my name? That means something, you know…”
By the way, if I may be pedantic for a moment… Pecha Kucha is actually a much wider ‘movement’, referring to all kinds of presentations in the “20 slides, 20 seconds” format. delicious.salted.com is just one variation on the theme… It started out in the architecture world I believe, and it exists on the UK tech/geek scene in the shape of Ask Later Nights.
February 24, 2007 at 4:10 am
Bru
Hey, another BarCamper here!
Interested in coworking too? I’m trying ti figure out if something like that could work in London… and created a stub on the wiki -> http://coworking.pbwiki.com/CoworkingLondon
Feel free to add comments or critics!
February 24, 2007 at 10:07 pm
Janette
@Matt - I’m glad you enjoyed it! I’ve found that working with a frown and big headphones works wonders at scaring people off! Thanks for the Pecha Kucha clarification. I shall amend my post.
@Bru - I do reckon it could work in London. I’ve seen a few signs to ‘rent-a-desk’ as well as studios for freelancers around Hoxton, where I work. The main problem is the insane property prices in this town!
Another thought I had is that there are so many small web companies around here that are growing at an unpredictable rate, which might provide an opportunity. The company where I work has gone from 5 to 9 people in a year, and we have to keep an extra workstation or two available for occasional freelancers. What if we rented office spaces that were 25% - 33% too large for us and rented out those extra spaces for coworking? This would provide a stable core income for the coworking space, as well as growing room for the company. And, of course, the crucial office space for people interested in coworking.
This might make the balance of power too awkward though, like sharing a flat with a couple. But it also might be one of the safer ways to establish this kind of working arrangement in an area unfamiliar with the concept. I’m still new to this whole coworking idea, but I think it would be an interesting variation on the theme. At any rate, I’ll mention it to my boss then next time we have the ’should we move offices or stop growing?’ conversation.
March 4, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Pedro Custódio
Janette,
just wanted to let you know that I’ve posted some notes on your presentation on my blog, I’ve translated parts of of your presentation and added some own thoughts, but still wanted to thank you for the engaging presentation about the flow! ;)