Bar Camp, an open multi-day event where people can share ideas and talk about just about anything they like, is a very important event for me. Two years ago I attended the first Bar Camp, which was held at Social Text’s offices in Palo alto. It was just a few weeks after starting TechCrunch, and nearly everyone I met there is now a friend. It was held just before all the craziness happened with the web, and the people who were starting companies weren’t expecting much of a return - they were doing it out of passion.
Pandora and TechMeme launched at the event, and we got our first glimpse of Flock. My notes on the event are here and here.
Since the original event there have been over 150 Bar Camps held around the world. 10,000 or so people have attended at least one of them.
This year, Bar Camp is back at the original location at Social Text’s offices in Palo Alto. But far more people are going to attend, so the organizers (Chris Messina, Ross Mayfield, Liz Henry, Tantek Çelik and Tara Hunt) have received city permission to take over the entire block (and so the event is called Bar Camp Block) At least 1,000 people are expected to flow through the three day event.
Event information is here. You can also sign up to attend at that link. See you there.
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I’ve tried…It’s good…No comment.
Just wanted to comment on the last post - the one you closed the comments on. Not sure what all the hurrah was about, or why the commenters had such poor grammar. Nick disclosed in the post…seemed reasonable to me.
Ask Mike or Duncan… First, people compaint Duncan’s poor grammar, spelling, etc. I duno.
I’m huge fan of Duncan. People want to fire Duncan.
Sadly, he’s on vacation. I miss his blog…
I don’t want to start the fight.
I don’t want get involve TC confortation.
Sounds great
I’ve been to few here in socal and they rank among some of my favorite events.
Last year, when BarCamp was held in downtown SF, I ran across the street to buy bottled water and ran into James Carville. Jim was trying to avoid eye contact with anyone and everyone- and not surprisingly I couldn’t convince him to join us.
Lesson- go to BarCamp. You might run into someone famous.
Interesting. Some friends and I were talking about doing a smaller version of the same kind of deal for just hobby-projects in our area. It’s a college town, so a lot of young programmers, and tons of enthusiasm. Looks like the professional, big league version would be fascinating.
And don’t worry, the literate readers are still out here.
You know some people end up meeting famous founders in TC post.
Some mockers here got jeolous. They couldn’t start their own startup, because lack of ideas and lack of access to VCS. I’m like to visit some great startup website.
I don’t like visit website that got VC funding. It’s waste of time.
I’ll be attending this one…any advice from past participants.
Barcamp ROCKS!!!
I’ve loved the two we’ve had in Chicago, which btw, I’ve heard is the thrid largest Barcamp community after the Valley and Austin!!!
May be very few people know and acknowledge this… Bangalore hosted 4 barcamps so far. Bangalore Barcamp 4 saw the biggest crowd turnout ever
more details at http://www.barcampbangalore.org
Ok, a question for you previous Barcamp organizers/attendees–if I’m not giving a presentation, does avidly contributing to the discussions fulfill the “at least help out with one” criteria? I have lots to contribute to discussions, but nothing to present. Please advise.
you said, “..it was held just before all the craziness happened with the web”
huh? did you just turn 19? weren’t you around in 97,98, 99?
Definitely go if you’re local or you can travel there for your first or tenth Barcamp. The first Texas Barcamp was in Dallas in Jan. 06 and I too met many new friends who have expanded Barcamp around Texas (including Austin / SXSW and others have traveled around the world to other *camps.
Now we’re putting on a derivative of the recent iPhoneDevCamp expanded in scope to “MobileDevCamp” Aug. 24th in Dallas - where Nokia, Ericsson, Nortel, Samsung, Cisco and others have N. American HQ or outposts.
Let this be an inspiration to start something of your own.
http://barcamp.pbwiki.com/MobileDevCamp
Wish we could go, but not enough notice. Sounds fun.
As Mike said - the people were doing it out of their passions. Yes, people were trying to start the next great thing, but their primary motivations were not driven by money first and foremost. It was driven about the desire to do something great, because they loved it, because they could.
Several of the people I see at parties and events these days are coming to this market opportunity because it looks like big money - not because it looks like the thing they are the most passionate about. That is the difference. As Guy Kawasaki said here at Gnomedex yesterday [paraphrasing] “People driven by only money and flipping businesses tend to attract the wrong sort of people”
Of course, none of this is true across the board - there are always exceptions, but generally speaking, I agree with Mike’s statement. It was truly a magical time in the valley, one that defines the spirit and purpose of the work for a lot of people I am fortunate to call my friend.
Wow…thanks for the plug, Mike! As you probably know, it had the powerful effect of sending A GAZILLION PEOPLE over to sign up. LOL. Yikes. A self-fulfilling prophecy, perhaps?
And thanks to TechCrunch for being a sponsor! All of the companies who donate money are supporting an awesome grassroots effort that is open and accessible to anyone. For @Moopy above, participation includes being part of a discussion, yes! It’s all about involving everyone and making sure that the sessions are discussions rather than lectures is a very inclusive thing.
Thanks again and I look forward to seeing how this turns out! As always, BarCamp is an ongoing experiment. I’ve never been to one that wasn’t interesting, though.
Ah Noes! I really want to go to barcamp but I’m going to be visiting my friends and family back in New York that weekend
Oh well, I blogged about it anyway.
2005 was “just before all the craziness happened with the web”? Are you kidding?
Washington D.C. just had its first BarCamp yesterday, Aug. 11th. There were so many people wanting to participate that we had to turn people away. It was a ton of fun and if there is one in your area, I highly reccomend re-arranging your schedule so you can go.
Check out BarCampdc.org for more details about our event.
Same here in Germany. BarCampCologne2 (which will happen the upcoming weekend) was completely booked out 9 hours after we had announced it in our blogs. There are still about 100 people on the waiting list.
aahh yes, I remeber it well.. 2005 the beginning of all the web craziness.
I had just moved into a sweet new place of my own. I made a deal with my mom that if I cleaned up all the boxes, I could have the entire basement to myself. It was awesome. Internet explorer 7 was in its infancy, and there were only 3 or 400 firefox plugins. I remember it like it was last year.