Why you should attend/organize/sponsor a Barcamp
On March 30th, 2009 Henriette Weber wrote:
Crossposted from Henrietteweber.com
I have been arranging Barcamp's in Copenhagen for about 3 years now and I have a new one in the making called socialmediacamp Copenhagen. (and I am toying with a bit of other camps as well). The problem/possibility of a barcamp is that the format is non-existent. the Barcamp format is called un-conference - meaning that unlike a conference, nothing is really planned except for a framework to support the attendants.
Basically as a barcamp organizer you put together a framework where people can have the best facilities for knowledge, network, inspiration, creativity and fun. It's a project management job where you make sure that the venue is working, the sponsors are happy and the crowd is exstatic.
As an attendant all you have to do, is participate. And how do you do that ? you put together a panel, you prepare a speech, a game a concert, whatever. Basically you prepare for, that minimum 30 mins of the barcamp is yours, to present whatever you want to present, or to do whatever you want to do. So what do you get out of participating ? hopefully you get to hang around some real cool cats for a day or two. You get to work with them, talk to them and laugh, dance and play with them. You get inspired from things you never thought would inspire you. You get creative.
one sentence why should I attend: you'll miss out on something if you dont. I don't know what that something is. But you're definetly missing out =)
As an organizer you get whuffie for organizing. A lot of whuffie. You sit back for two months after the camp has been done, and then you get that urge to have people around you in the barcamp way again. People that wants to share and participate. You could a beercamp (as allan did) or a transitcamp or a creativecamp, a designcamp, a fairtradecamp or as I am about to do - a socialmediacamp. If there something you are passionate about and you want to put your thumb on it - do a Barcamp people =)
As a sponsor you should give food or stuff to people! - why ? because they remember you for that. At the last couple of barcamps there has been something like 70 of the most influental and connected people there. Now that's something that you could use both as a supportive project, but also for marketing purposes I bet ? There's also some of that magic whuffie rubbing off to the sponsor, you get the mentality of a barcamp + the awareness and involvement from the people attending. oh and don't get me started on what will happen if you want to sponsor t-shirts or schwag bags =)
So final question: is barcamp just for geeks ? no it's for passionate people. People who wants to think new and get inspired. In my world geeks are a great thing. But I could see that designers, project managers and CEO 's could go barcamping - as well as the strange guy from the financial office. Barcamps are kind of an underground event.
[barcamp, socialmediacampcopenhagen, unconference] [4 comments]