What is this BarCamp thing anyway?
So what exactly is Barcamp? The name was originally derived from ‘foocamp’ which is an invitation only conference organized by O’Reilly Media. Foo and bar being common placeholder names in hacker and other nerd slang. The barcamp.org site says, “BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from participants.”
No Spectators, Only Participants
Barcamp has been described as an ‘unconference’ where the attendees are all encouraged to make a presentation on something that they have some expertise with. As it turns out it’s not even necessarily required that one be an expert in a subject to present, as the cooperative nature of the event probably will mean that someone else will be willing to help out if they know more than you on the subject.
Topics discussed have historically been tech-centric, but the floor is open for anyone that is passionate about a topic to present to an audience. Anything from programming languages to graphic design to how-to sessions dealing with crafts or art or I don’t even know what.
So the idea is that the conference starts as a blank slate, and everyone there picks a time slot and a topic and reserves a room for the presentation. Details may vary but that’s essentially the heart of it. So what topics would you be interested in seeing presentations on? And I guess even more importantly: what topics would you be interested in presenting? Also, if you’ve been to or organized a previous Barcamp, what topics worked well?
Barcamp Detroit!
I was first introduced to Barcamp at BarcampGR3. It was a lot of fun, but I was shocked and amazed that there had not yet been a Barcamp in my city. “I must help to make this happen!” I thought to myself. So I registered the domain and here we are.
So far the idea is just a dream but I think that with enough support and hard work Bar Camp Detroit can be a truly awesome community run event.