How to Dis-Organize a Barcamp

Barcamp on the brain. I have been doing nothing but barcamp stuff this week. I labored all day to think of a great topic, but I was always being interrupted by barcamp business.

So I finally thought: if I can’t come up with a good topic, why not present about how to (dis)organize a barcamp at Barcamp?

Mind you, this is my thoughts about barcamp organization. Other barcamps are organized differently. No two barcamps are alike. No two barcamp organizers have the same style. Your mileage may vary. Drink plenty of fluids. Use caution when operating heavy machinery.

View my presentation on SlideShare

Barcamp Chiang Mai Is Underway!

Barcamp Chiang Mai is underway. We have 104 people who are attending.

Group Shot. That’s a lot of Barcampers!

Preetam Rai just gave a very interesting presentation on Interesting Web 2.0 Companies in Asia. Draper Fischer Jurvetson just set up an office in Vietnam. Preetam suggested that if companies in Thailand wanted to create a great international site, they focus on their countries innate strengths and pointed to tourism as an excellent existing industry to build great websites around. He also suggested that a sight that was tightly focused ONLY on travel in Thailand that offered good content and community input was badly needed and would probably be quite successful.

2:00 pm I led a discussion on “What’s the Best CMS: Joomla, Drupal, WordPress or Typo3?” Which basically came to the conclusion that there is no one “best” CMS, just many good tools that are better suited for different audiences.

3:00pm Getting ready to do a presentation “Twitter Rules, sudo Sugree.” @Sugree will be co-presenting with me and @molecularck via Twitter!

4:00 Coffee break, distributed T-shirts. The crowd starts to dwindle.

4:30pm My final presentation was “Online Tourism in Thailand: Issues and Opportunities” with Dr. Ken Cosh, the head pf the Payap IT Faculty.

6:00 Supposed to finish, but realize we scheduled one too many session. Great! Enjoying a great discussion on social networks in Thailand.

6:30pm Off to Dayli for an after party!

Photos on Flickr tagged with BarcampChiangMai.

Barcamp Chiang Mai

Well, people have been asking “what about a Barcamp in Chiang Mai?”

Well, why not?

Some of us folks who organized Barcamp Bangkok have started setting up some infrastructure for Barcamp Chiang Mai in hope that people will jump on board and make it happen.

If you are interested in Barcamp Chiang Mai, here are some contact points:

• Website: http://www.barcampchiangmai.org/
• Facebook Group for Barcamp Chiang Mai (the best place to sign up for notifications at the moment)
• Google Group for Barcamp Chiang Mai communications
• Barcamp Chiang Mai Wiki

I am not living in Chiang Mai so I have no intentions of heading-up this effort, but I am glad to support anybody who does and I will do what I can from Bangkok to get a Barcamp going in Chiang Mai.

If anybody is interested in attending, please sign up on Facebook for now.

If you are seriously committed to seeing Barcamp Chiang Mai happen and want to be a key organizer, please email me at john-at-barcampchiangmai.org.

Until then, I look forward to seeing you in Chiang Mai!

Oh–if you are up around Chiang Mai, I will be in the area between March 9 and 12th–look me up online!

Barcamp Bangkok on Fukduk.tv

Fukduk.tv did a nice piece on Barcamp Bangkok. It’s mostly in Thai–but you get a feel for Barcamp Bangkok. I have a short (but very insightful) appearance near the end–so don’t stop part-way through!

Barcamp Bangkok Wrap-Up

Barcamp Bangkok is over. It was a huge success. 200+ great people, lots of great conversations. Barcamp carried on until well into the night; the after party had about 70 people eating, drinking, laughing and talking until 10:00pm.

The topics were eclectic, the audience was intellectual, the whole place was energetic. You could feel the excitement in the air; the geeks were having their Woodstock. What struck me was that Barcamp was more than a tech conference, it was a cultural event, a coming together of people that are inventing a new culture. That was tremendously exciting.

The morning started out filled with dread and fear; the venue was a mess from a party the night before. As much as we had all planned out what we were going to do, nobody had done it before and we ran into a cartain amount of problems as the unexpected and unanticipated reared it’s ugly head. But people just appeared and pitched in and things unfolded rapidly and extraordinarily well. We started the first sessions on time and things got easier from there on. Amazing!

I did one presentation. Drupal App Development with CCK and Views. I did not start preparing until after the topic was selected (it was one of the most highly voted topics). Running on 2 hours sleep, un-prepared–it was going OK until my web broswer froze. 25 minute topics don’t give you much time for recovering from problem! At least a few people (Julie, Sajal, Anoop) threw me a rope and asked some questions while I was restarting my browser. Thanks guys!

I did not even sit through one presentation! Not that there were not topics I was interested in, it was that I was occupied with other things; it was partly because I was so busy running around and checking that things were running smoothly, partly because the people there were so interesting I kept getting drawn into passionate discussions and I could not tear myself away.
Lots of requests for a second Barcamp Bangkok. I think everybody is up for that.

There is a lot of talk about a BeachCamp: throwing an International “Pacific Rim” Barcamp at a beach resort here in Thailand. I am really excited about that prospect and starting to take Barcamp to a new level and make international connections.

Now it’s time for all of us organizers to start a post-Barcamp analysis of what went right and what could be improved. I think we all see lots of areas for innovation and improvement and we are a little shocked at how “right” a lot of it went despite the concerns we have up until about noon the day of Barcamp!

Thanks to all the organizers and to all the participants: you made it a great Barcamp!

Barcamp Bangkok in Progress

I am dog tired but so excited. Up until 5:00am doing last minute prep, wake at 7:30 to go to Barcamp.

Everything started as chaos–but people pitched in and order slowly gained the upper hand. Somehow, at 11:00, as promised, the sessions started and pretty much everything worked. Wow!

What I realized is that Barcamp is not about technology, it’s about culture. It’s about a cultural revolution, a new way of organizing and communicating and relating.

Technology is the platform and the conversation is about technology, but the real transformative power of Barcamp is in getting together people that are tapped into the new culture. It’s a Woodstock for nerds.

I feel energized and very excited. I have had some of the most exciting conversations I have had in years today. I am tired–but I am energized.

This is the network of people that I wanted to tap into in Thailand for years. I don’t know that there was a gathering point for them–until now.

More Barcamps to follow, for sure!

There is a lot to process. I learned quite a bit–and it has nothing to do with the room talks–I did not attend one of them (except the one I gave where my computer locked up). The realizations are all from the process of creating Barcamp, how it unfolded and the conversations I had outside the talk rooms.

Barcamp Bangkok: The Home Stretch

I could use some sleep. A few hours to go until Barcamp Bangkok starts and still things to do. No chance to prepare a presentation. Kinda ironic.

I am excited–and terrified. So much has been planned and executed by the fabulous Barcamp Bangkok team, so much is still in flux. Roll the dice and see how it plays, I say!

But the T-shirts look great:

and so do the signs:

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.

What is Barcamp Bangkok?

I wrote this for the upcoming Barcamp Bangkok. I thought it was worth sharing.

What is Barcamp?

Perhaps Barcamp needs a little explaining. It’s an educational even that does not fit any traditional molds.

Let’s start by defining what a Barcamp is not. It’s NOT a lecture. It’s NOT a presentation. It’s NOT a conference. In fact, it’s often called an “un-conference.”

Barcamp is a conversation. The whole idea is to get smart people that love technology together to start talking… and see where the conversation goes. We don’t even have a firm agenda.

Barcamp is about participation. There are no spectators, only participants. Everybody is urged to come prepared to present something or assist in a presentation—or at the very minimum actively participate in the conversations that take place. It’s about taking an active role instead of being a passive spectator.

Barcamp is open. Anybody can attend—as long as they come with the intention of participating. The more people we have the more ideas, the more topics, the more perspectives, the more participation, the more energy. The more people the better the camp is for everyone.

Barcamp is unstructured. We provide facilities, infrastructure and time slots—but set no agenda. Once the attendees have assembled, they post the topics they want to present on a board and then the group selects the topics. But don’t mistake unstructured for unplanned. Lots of preparation goes into creating an environment where communication can take place on many levels. Participants are also encouraged to prepare their presentations in advance but be prepared to deviate from the plan if the conversation takes them in a new direction.

Barcamp is massively networked. Everybody comes ready to jack into the network and share what they are experiencing. Laptops, routers, hubs, access points abound. The network extends Barcamp to every corner of the globe..

Barcamps are about communication. People bring their laptops and are connected. They are blogging about their experiences in real time. They are posting presentations to the web. They are chatting via IM and IRC. They are streaming video. They are podcasting. The boundaries of the Barcamp extend beyond it’s physical location

Most importantly, new connections are being formed. People connect to new People. People connect to new ideas. Ideas connect to other ideas and new ideas are formed. Magic happens.

Whatever happens—that’s just what was supposed to happen.

If you know a lot, a little, or nothing about the topics–it does not matter. All that matters is that you are interested and that you want to participate. Even if you know nothing, you participation is important; asking questions is a part of the conversation!

We are trying to stretch the learning paradigm here. We want to move from the traditional expert imparting his wisdom, to a group sharing knowledge.

More about Barcamps:

What is Barcamp? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BarCamp
The Rules of Barcamp. http://barcamp.org/TheRulesOfBarCamp
See other places hosting Barcamp: http://barcamp.org/