Barcamp Bangkok - One Week to Go!

We are on the final stretch of planning for Barcamp Bangkok–only one more week to go.

The things I thought would be hard (getting sponsors, spreading the word so we would have enough people to make it interesting), turned out to be the easiest part. The things I thought would be easy, are turning out to be a lot of work (network, location, logistics, mostly because we have 5-10X the amount of interest I expected for a first time event). Live and learn, as they say.

Luckily there are some really good people helping to organize Barcamp Bangkok.

Saturday was the day to survey the location and plan the network. Indus has a 512K DSL connection–not good, so we talked to True about upgrading the connection to their fastest speed for one month and we will pick up the tab. Never enough bandwidth!

Lots of details, but I think they are sorted. Unconventional methods of communication by traditional organizational standards (IRC, Twitter, Google Docs, News Groups, Wikis, GTalk), but surprisingly effective if you have committed people.

Overall, it’s been a eye-opening experience on how to make things happen in a less-structured, more-open, more-participatory fashion. Still, decisions need to be made and the open structure sometimes seems to diffuse responsibility, but as long as people realize that stepping up and making decisions is OK–things work out.