Support Your Local Barcamp

Barcamp? What is a Barcamp? Does it involve sleeping in a cocktail bar?

From Wikipedia, a Barcamp is an international network of user-generated conferences. Taking a tongue-in-cheek name from an invitation Foocamp , Barcamp is purposely open, relatively unorganised and, well, funner.

Generally, a group of un-organisers initiates a date, time, location for a Barcamp, and opens registration for all. No formal sessions are planned prior to the unconference.

People turn up and nominate what they would like to talk about. Attendees either watch, or not watch. But these attendees are not idle watchers. Most presenters invite questions, and many offline conversations take place.

If you are a parent of a geek-age daughter or son: take them along too. Barcamp attendees and presenters do not have an upper or lower age limit. A Barcamp is an excellent community of supportive geeks.

Having attended and sponsored (as Microsoft) a variety of Australian Barcamps, the vibe of the conference is relaxed with a sense of free intellectual exchange. In Australia, the attendees span the Open source world, Ruby on Rails crowd, Venture capitalists, Information architects and general geeks.

Support your local Barcamp. Attend, and more importantly, participate.

See me next at BarcampCanberra1: