It’s time we had a BarCampChristchurch!

Last weekend they held what might have been the world’s largest unconference – BarCampBlock, which essentially took up a whole block of Palo Alto. From the look of the photos, and the bloggance around it, everyone had a great time.

I think it’s about time we bought the Barcamp meme to Christchurch, and the people on the TVIC mailing list, and others I’ve talked to, all seem pretty keen on the concept. You can read (and add to) the plan on the BarCampChristchurch wikipage here, or just put yourself down as an attendee.

Unconferences are a neat idea. To some extent they’re an “agile” methodology – but for conferences, not software. They don’t require a lot of upfront planning, and they can work around hiccups quite well.

The Barcamp model of unconference is based on the Foo Camp model, like the one I went to earlier this year, the main differences being that Barcamps not invite-only, anyone is welcome to turn up, if they feel they can add to the occasion. As with the SCA, and Burning Man, there are no spectators, only participants.

Everyone turns up at the beginning, registers, and introduces themselves – using 3 words only. At Kiwi Foo I chose “Attention Deficit Infojunkie.” while Rod Drury picked “Stock Options, Hiring.” – while most other people had at least one programming language of choice in their 3 words!

Then everyone writes down on a big sheet of paper what they’re going to talk about and when. So the agenda is set on the day, but you can announce what you think you’re going to be talking about on the wiki beforehand, and you can also make suggestions of what you’d like to see talked about. I’ve made several over on the wiki, and wll be contacting those people in turn. A few of them have already indicated interest.

But the organisation is very much a shared effort. Anyone who thinks they can contribute is very welcome to do so. Something that would be great to get early on is a logo :-)

Barcamp is a worldwide phenomena, and there are more and more of them being run all over the place, but somehow New Zealand seems to have missed out so far. There’s one coming up in Wellington, but I was thinking we might pip them at the post and host the first one here in Christchurch. I’ve talked to several people about it and there’s a lot of interest.

Everyone who attends should do a presentation, even if it’s a short one. I think we should make the default time 30min, but some people may want to go 15min instead, or 45min, or an hour. You don’t have to do a demo or bring slides, and you can leave as much time as you want for chat. Depending on how many people we get, we’ll do up to three streams.
Some sessions could be in panel format, if people want to run them that way.

You do not have to be as interesting as a TED speaker.

You certainly don’t have to do as much prep as Steve Jobs does.

But if you want to get a standing ovation, I recommend reading this article by Guy Kawasaki.

I’ll post some more links to articles about giving presentations once I dig them out of my notes collection.

From The rules of BarCamp

• 1st Rule: You do talk about Bar Camp.
• 2nd Rule: You do blog about Bar Camp.
• 3rd Rule: If you want to present, you must write your topic and name in a presentation slot.
• 4th Rule: Only three word intros.
• 5th Rule: As many presentations at a time as facilities allow for.
• 6th Rule: No pre-scheduled presentations, no tourists.
• 7th Rule: Presentations will go on as long as they have to or until they run into another presentation slot.
• 8th Rule: If this is your first time at BarCamp, you HAVE to present. (Ok, you don’t really HAVE to, but try to find someone to present with, or at least ask questions and be an interactive participant.)