November 8, 2007
On *camps
Also of interest: Old people got it straight - transcript
Took a quick video in a dark bar last night where we were hosting FacebookCamp. I’m starting a Youtube channel, I think, so you can go see it there (or here on the blog, obviously).
I honestly think we need to reinvent the *camp. So do a lot of others. So let’s talk about it.
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Filed by Julien at 2:06 pm under random
Considering that most of the information is on the web (or in wikipedia) anyways. All we need are introductions and point of contacts for when we have questions.
Couple of hosts talking for a couple of minutes to formalize the event… maybe a show of hands who’s doing what… show of hands who’s where in their experience level…. then let everyone lose and have lots of drink tickets.
Tell ppl to bring their MP3 records and camera phones… they can laptop about it later.
forget the slide decks… forget wifi access… face to face communication and introductions is all we need. we can catch up on the rest online… if we really feel passionate about continuing the conversation.
honestly, it worked really well last night. sorry about the quality of the vid, but the light was actually really good. you could see everyone and just chill. there were at least 200 people there and it worked amazingly.
I’m sorry I was out of town and missed this.
You nailed it, make it hard for people to have laptops out, and it won’t happen.
“I honestly think we need to reinvent the *camp”
Ya think? ;-) I don’t attend most of them, even though some of the people that organize them are among my most respected colleagues. It’s ironic how in a place of so much flux and innovation, we feel the need to reify a particular process, idea, etc as being an explanation or causation. It’s funny that in reading your post and leaving this message I experience a feeling of heresy in criticizing a practice of *camps that is so ridiculously young. Of course we should be continuing to innovate, to improve, to come up with alternatives.
One idea that my old research group (gamecode) came up with by themselves. It was a barcamp format, but each person in the research group was allowed to bring one person and that invited person was allowed to invite someone else.
apparently it worked pretty well.
lol! :)
thanks for agreeing to MC our event, Julien. It was tons o’ fun.
Will it be annual? Doubt it. See you when the next big thing rolls around. You rock as an MC.