Well, over a week has passed since BarCamp Memphis and I have had 8 posts (9 if you count the first "wow" post) on the single day known as the "unconference." I have been to several traditional conferences and I do admit, BarCamp Memphis was the most "UN" conference I have ever attended.
I enjoyed all of the sessions (yes, even the eCommerce one that left me with more questions than answers) and I recommend an future session we may have here in town. The organizers, all listed on the Barcamp Memphis website, but I want to say a special thank you to Eric Matthews and Dave Barger who seemed to be everywhere working to keep the day moving. I almost think there were at least two of each of them as I am certain I saw Dave in two rooms at once. To everyone helped who pulled this off, congratulations on a job well done. Also, put me on the short list to help next time, I'll be glad to help where I can.
This is not to say the day didn't have it's bumps. First, the wireless had issues at the beginning of the day. When the wireless was fixed in the other two rooms, room three still had issues as it was quite some distance away. There were some work arounds for this, however it was anoying to say the least. It didn't affect me much in the afternoon as I stayed in rooms 1 and 2, and it may have improved after I left. I also should probably note I didn't really know to expect wireless all around as I knew there was going to be a Bloghaus, so I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.
With the weird way the weather was acting that week, I think the organizers did a pretty good job environmentally, not to hot or cold for the average person. For ME, well that is another story as I go with a jacket and short sleeves until the temp stays in the 30s during the day. I stopped expected sites to cater to my internal temperatures a LONG time ago.
The Food was MUCH better than expected. I don't know how they managed to feed all of us with BBQ that good without going into the red, but I am very glad they figured it out. Also, a conference of this nature with Red Bull as a sponsor is a match made in heaven. The one sponsor/prize provider I found a little awkward was Zannel.com. I can understand the idea, but it didn't work as well as I would have expected as I couldn't get the search to work via mobile well enough to follow more people, and I am not quite sure just how many used the system or abandoned it for Twitter later in the day. i know there were a few of us who kept with it and I think we did a pretty good job of pushing the service for a couple of hours which was the REAL reason behind the sponsorship I do believe. (Nothing like an army of tech twitterers at a BarCamp to test a new social conversation site.)
As my (endless) posts on BarCamp Memphis come to an end, I would like to say this BarCamp was an unqualified success and I again thank the sponsors and presenters and look forward to continuing the conversations we started that day. Also, to all the new subscribers my BarCamp posts have brought me, I say welcome and I hope I don't bore you to death in the future. Below is an embeded video from BarCampMemphis.org. I think it does a good job giving you a taste of the event and it doesn't have too many pictures of me in it, a plus in my book. I hope you like it. This is from the BarCamp Memphis site, by way of blip.tv if you'd like to go to the source.
[blip.tv ?posts_id=1478100&dest=-1]
The bumps are a fine characteristic that make a BarCamp what it is. My presentation was in room 3 and I quickly had to roll over to static presentation mode because of the lack of signal. When helping print the morning schedules, I knew it was entirely possible that we wind-up changing it impromptu (and in the spirit of BarCamp).
My Zannel account is going to get a little dusty. I'm going to retain it for "live posting" events without polluting up my twitter-stream.
Your posts have been a wonderful chronicling of an event made great by your participation in it. Thank you for being part of the experience.
Posted by: lalunablanca | November 20, 2008 at 04:31 AM