BarCamp Philly roundup

Last Saturday I attended my first-ever BarCamp event in Philadelphia. For the uninitiated, BarCamp is a user-generated “unconference.” This means that there’s no set schedule of speakers or topics to promote before the event. Attendees sign up counting on the idea that they’ll share and absorb knowledge without knowing ahead of time exactly what the content might be. Not surprisingly, the conference was started by, and therefore much of the content focuses on, the tech arena.

In each of its 3 years, @BarCampPhilly has grown in size and scope, and there’s truly something for everyone in the creative and tech communities to learn. The organizers, @JPToto, @stellargirl, @KelaniNichole & @sarahphymn planned the whole event in their spare time, everything from securing meeting space at the University of the Arts to AV equipment, donated breakfast t-shirts and other schwag. If you’re going to attend an “unconference”, I highly recommend one in the tech sector – these people know how to get things done.

The engine of #BCPhilly, the session sign-up board, was remarkably un-technical. As I mentioned earlier, the schedule is created by anyone interested in hosting a session on a particular topic. Show up, sign in and sign up to lead a session. As the meeting room filled, so did the board, with topics ranging from “It’s my birthday! Gimme Hugs!” to “Geek Improv” to “Rapid Web Development w/YUI + YQL” Later, the schedule was re-created online so we attendees could reference the schedule to change mid-session, or find out where we’d like to go the next hour.

As a writer, I was curious to see how many of the session topics would appeal to my limited knowledge of and capacity for web development. One of the questions on the registration form asked “What languages do you know?” I filled in English and (high school) Latin. I shouldn’t have worried. For each of the 3 morning timeslots I attended, there were at least two sessions I was interested in attending. Ultimately, I chose: “Swimming in the Real Time River”, a round-table conversation on media consumption (or obsession!) where we discussed best practices for maintaining our social networks. Following over 1,000 people on Twitter, I often struggle with the threshold for creating a stream that’s useful without being overwhelming. With only 1 session down and 2 more to go, my mind buzzed from the useful ways other people monitor their networks. I’d found my tribe!

Session 2 promised a “Usability/Primer in 10 Minutes Flat” and the presenter certainly delivered. While this may’ve been entry-level for many people at the conference, I picked up lots of great insight for designing websites (shake test – for grandma’s coordination using the mouse!) and less than 24 hours after the conference had placed an order with Amazon for the Yahoo! Style Guide.

And if these two sessions were energizing, #3 was made written for me. “Links as Language” taught us how important hyperlinks are in the way we read, and how we, as writers and developers, can enhance the web-reading experience by creating links and language that add to the conversation. The two most worthless words on the internet? Click here. (noted!)

The competition for attention during after-lunch sessions was intense, and, frankly, I’m not sure why some of the hosts didn’t move their topic to a less-crowded timeslot during another part of the day. The session I was most excited for, “Riot URLs: Gender Feminism and Tech” sounded very interesting, both in name, and from the online chatter I caught afterward.

In (very) short, I’m so glad I attended my first BarCamp, and I do recommend for anyone looking to learn or share ideas with a tech community to try to get involved either in your local area or visit one somewhere else.

I’m not the only one who came away buzzing from BarCampPhilly. For more background, follow the hashtag, Twitter, or join the Facebook page.

See you next year!