Barcamp (thoughts)

I’m still pondering/processing Barcamp. I had a great time, enjoyed meeting people, and I learned a lot.

Kate’s and my session went well, I think. I really liked the fact that the audience jumped in and talked about their problems and engaged with what we had to say.

My attempts at blogging the sessions I attended were rather half-arsed (see this one, for example). I was too busy listening, watching people blog, or looking at the Twitter updates, I think. It’s just as well other people made far better notes than I did.

Kathryn‘s writeups are far more detailed than mine and I’m particularly grateful for the fact that she blogged sessions I didn’t. Nick Cowie’s presentation on the mobile web (his slides here) was interesting, as was Trevor Bennett’s on podcasting. (Sue Waters and Dee have also blogged their day at Barcamp.)

Kate also made a better record than me. Kate on Gary’s WordPress session, and Kay’s ergonomics session. Gary’s presentation is here. Where would we be without the Web?

It’s a pity you can’t attend two sessions at once. I ended up attending mostly non-techie presentations, but I would have liked to have gone to the Ruby on Rails presentation and the session on Running successful industry projects with software engineering students too.

There are photos of the day, on Flickr. Chris Quinn took some really nice shots. Here’s one of me, as the scribe for the final Silicon Beach session.

I think unconferences are far more enjoyable than traditional conferences – I really liked the relaxed and informal atmosphere and I really learned a lot.