I had coffee with Tara Hunt and Chris Messina a few days after their successful stint at the MESH Conference. While at Gagglescape's second office, Le Gourmand on Spadina, we spoke for a few hours about the Web 2.0, BarCamp, and being a wired citizen in the 21st Century. The two are forces behind BarCamp. Less than nine months old, BarCamp has spawned forty-plus self-organized learning events around the globe. It is an Internet phenomenon that will have an impact on how people and, invariably, companies learn.

For those readers who are not familiar with BarCamp, here is a brief explanation as taken from the Wikipedia:

The first BAR Camp was held in Palo Alto, CA, from 2005 August 19 to 2005 August 21. An estimated 200 participants attended and gave numerous presentations on a wide variety of high-tech topics including:

* Wikis and other collaborative editing paradigms
* Social impact of technologies
* Voting methods
* Technical and physical security
* Version control, configuration, and package distribution
* Synchronous telephony
* Women in technology professions
* High-tech business models

Informal discussions provided substantial value as well.

An unusual dimension of BAR Camp is that a number of participants chose literally to camp out for one or two nights in the workspace of Socialtext, the venue provider. Some actual tents were pitched within and without the workspace.

Another noteworthy feature of the event was its extremely short planning period. Andy Smith speculated on an event similar to FOO Camp, but with open membership, on 2005 August 13 -- less than a week before the event itself. At that time, even the venue was unknown. Infrastructure was being installed even as the event began, and eventually included a robust WiFi network and three conference rooms equipped with video projectors.

Besides wikis of the conventional, online variety, several unusual implementations of the wiki concept were demonstrated:

A whiteboard was emblazoned with various notes and labeled, "This is a wiki!" For a time this functioned as the center for presentation scheduling.
By the second day of the event, scheduling had moved to a paper-based system -- still in accordance with the wiki philosophy, in that the schedule was freely edited by various participants, who not only took over free time slots, but occasionally swapped and moved existing "reservations".
One participant wore a teeshirt covered in velcro letters, which others edited mercilessly.

Financial model

Several sponsors (viewable on the event's wiki site) absorbed the major costs of the event; in addition, small individual cash donations were accepted, but not required. Some sponsors and individuals provided assistance in-kind; and food and drink was abundant. Astonishingly, the event ended with a surplus of beer. However, the tab at a nearby restaurant ran $1500 over budget.

Some event planners have promised to make the entire event budget public, to assist future planners of similar events.

Go to the next entry for a synopsis of our discussion.