Before I begin, let’s ask Wikipedia.org to describe the terms ‘unconference’, and ‘BarCamp.’
Unconference: An unconference is a conference where the content of the sessions is driven and created by the participants, generally day-by-day during the course of the event, rather than by a single organizer, or small group of oganizers, in advance. (more…)
BarCamp: BarCamp is an international network of unconferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants — focusing on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies and social protocols. (more…)
Now that you’ve improved your vocabulary, we can continue. ;)
Friday morning I attended the first of what will hopefully be many Rochester BarCamps. At 10AM, I met with Justin Thorpe, Zack Gilbert, and few RIT faculty, and a plethora of Western NY geeks. After ‘tagging’ ourselves for introductory purposes, Dan Bogaard spoke about an educational tool he’s developing. 11:30AM marked lunchtime. Salvatores. Square slices.
By 12:30PM, it was time for my session.
As you may or may not know, RIT’s main web site is enduring a redesign. Though it’s the work of RIT’s University Publications department (specifically Jared Lyons, and Jeff Arbegast), they could not be in attendance. Between my proximity and my interest, I lead a session discussing strategies, criticism and feedback for this site.
How’d it go? Pretty great. In fact, great enough that I’ll definitely be at the next BarCamp. I filled a couple of pages with constructive notes for Jared, and felt very at home in the crowd.
As a final communal gesture, let’s see who’s blogging about BarCamp Rochester?
Confessions of an Undercover Geek: Come to BarCamp Rochester!, and BarCampRochester was a huge success!.
Twilight Apothecary: BarCampRochester and
Kodak disses BarCampRochester
Mamamusings: I’m missing BarCamp Rochester, but you shouldn’t!
don’t forget the BarCamp wiki, and Flickr stream!
Pete, I'm glad you had fun. We need to get the group together soon so that we can start talking about the next one.
It was terrific to meet you all, and I hope to see you again soon! Perhaps in my neck of the woods? SXSWInteractive will be coming to Austin soon, so mark your calendars ;)