I’m excited that Barcamp Seattle is only a few weeks away. Every year I look forward to it. Every year it doesn’t disappoint. Barcamp Seattle is always filled with great presentations, awesome discussions, and smart people. When all is said and done, I walk away inspired and energized. If you’ve never been to a Barcamp, and you’re near Seattle, you should definitely attend. It’s a 2 day event August 14-15, 2010. One thing to keep in mind is that space is limited this year. It’s free to attend, but make sure you register because it will “sell out”. You may be wondering … What is it like at Barcamp Seattle? In a word, Rad!
Rules of Barcamp
Barcamps are sometimes called un-conferences. This is because they defy some of the traditions of regular conferences. My favorite is that anyone who attends has the opportunity to present.
The Rules of Barcamp are as follows
1st Rule: You do talk about BarCamp.
2nd Rule: You do blog about BarCamp.
3rd Rule: If you want to present, you must write your topic and name in a presentation slot.
4th Rule: Only three word intros.
5th Rule: As many presentations at a time as facilities allow for.
6th Rule: No pre-scheduled presentations, no tourists.
7th Rule: Presentations will go on as long as they have to or until they run into another presentation slot.
8th Rule: If this is your first time at BarCamp, you HAVE to present. (Ok, you don’t really HAVE to, but try to find someone to present with, or at least ask questions and be an interactive participant.)
As you experience Barcamp, keep a couple of things in mind
Be Nice - You learned this from Mom, and Patrick Swayze in Road House
Don’t Pitch Me Bro – Giving a session about your work is bad form. People come to Barcamp to learn and share ideas, not the hard sell.
Vote With Your Feet – Time is precious at Barcamp. If you’re not enjoying the session, walk out quietly. Try another one.
What Can I Present
There’s no real limit on what you can present. Perhaps that’s why it’s hard for a lot of people to come up with a topic. Others suffer from blank page syndrome. What do you find interesting? What do you know that might interest others? The attendees tend to be software developers, web designers, entrepreneurs and social media folks. So presentations tend to cover things like social media tools, web apps, UI/UX concepts, publishing. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. What inspires you? How would you make something better?
Some potential sources of inspiration are your previous blog posts and articles, other conference sessions you’ve attended, and news/magazine articles on topics that interest you. Combine them, bend them, or turn them on their head.
Final Thoughts
Barcamp is a great venue if you’re new to public speaking. The audience is on your side, and wants to hear what you have to say. So pick a topic that interests you and has some depth to it, and share it with the world.
Karaoke and the Tour
Karaoke for me is a funny thing. While karaoke itself hasn’t changed much, my idea of it has changed dramatically over the years. In years past, I held a highly unfavorable opinion of karaoke and the people who did it. Back in the day (during my college years) I saw it as something that the talent-less did for entertainment. Every time I heard somebody do karaoke, they were awful. Even worse, they weren’t even playing instruments. At least bar bands could play. Yeah, that’s pretty snobby, but I see that now. So what changed?
A couple of things have changed. I’ve gained maturity over the years, and my love and appreciation of music has grown in leaps and bounds. Also, I learned how hard it can be to get on stage in front of a lot of people through my experiences with open mic nights. How did I do? when i was starting – lets’ just say they weren’t my finer moments. I was super nervous – I’d forget lyrics; my hands would shake from stage fright. With time I became better and more confident as a performer. Another thing that changed was I took singing lessons. Through this experience, I learned just how hard it is to be a good singer.
It wasn’t really until I took singing lessons, that I saw karaoke as the ideal vehicle for work on my singing. It freed me from having to concentrate on the chords i was playing and providing the rhythm. Somwhat recently, I discovered that people I already knew in the Seattle tech scene liked to perform at karaoke. So I’ve started doing it and discovered that I really like it. One of the things about doing open mic nights in the past, I limited song selections to what I could sing and play. With karaoke, I’m free to work on my singing and related activities like composure, stature, pitch, breath control, and be in character. Now when I think about song choices, I think: do I like the song? is it within my range? do i think I could do it well? As I try more songs, I surprise myself on the number of songs I’m finding that I think I can do well. I’m also noticing that I’m not nervous anymore when I go on stage. hmmm, I wonder why that is? Nevermind for now. That is a different post. So what about the “tour”?
The Seattle Karaoke Tour was devised by Jeff Croft and Alix Han. Eight nights in a row of karaoke, where each venue is different from the last, throughout Seattle. I’m looking forward to it. Last night was a great start. I’ve got a list of new songs that I haven’t tried yet. I’m hoping to make it to each night, to try them all. We’ll see what happens.
Barcamp Seattle 2009 Schedule
Some of you may be wondering what the schedule is for Barcamp. Friday Night there is a kickoff party/book signing at office nomads . Tara Hunt (@missrogue) will be selling and signing copies of her book “The Whuffie Factor“. Saturday morning at 10am the doors open for Barcamp Seattle. People will mingle for a bit and around 10:30 we’ll make announcements and let people signup themselves up for sessions on the board for the day. Everyone who shows up, has the opportunity to run a session. At 5pm, the sessions will wrap up for the day. Afterwards, we’ll head over to the Red Door, which is just a couple of blocks away. On Sunday, another set of session will start at 10am and will wrap up at 1pm.
I’m looking forward to Barcamp Seattle 2009, which is just a few short weeks away. My friends/fellow organizers have been hard at work organizing the event for you. This year we’re trying to attract other groups outside the “tech bubble” to increase the variety of the sessions. We want everyone to participate as it makes things more interesting, we learn more, and it expands our world in more unexpected directions through the people we’ll meet.
If you don’t know what Barcamp is, allow me to help. Think of the last conference you attended. Now imagine the list of speakers and schedule didn’t exist. Then add your name and a topic you think others might find interesting to the schedule. When the scheduled time comes, you give your presentation. Lastly imagine not paying a registration fee. Anybody that attends has the opportunity to present. That’s Barcamp!
Historically, Barcamp has been a very geeky event filled with Software Developers, Web Designers, and Mobile enthusiasts . But the beauty of Barcamp is that it can be anything you want it to be. In that spirit, I’d like to suggest some topics that I’d like to see at Barcamp Seattle 2009. If one of these interests you, take it and run with it.
How To Be a Good Wingman
Accessories for Men – How to Augment Your Personal Style
Dressing Better : Improving the Nerd Wardrobe (provide theory and tips)
Entrepreneurship: Starting a Services-based Business
How to date a Model AKA Girl Baiting – A Nerd’s Guide to Getting the Girl
Become Extroverted – How to Defy and Overcome Your Shyness
I’d like to hear what you’re interested in hearing about. Write it in the comments below.
Event Details
Sat Jun 13, 10am-5pm.
Sun Jun 14 10am-1pm.
Adobe Conference Center
801 North 34th Street
Seattle, WA 98103 Map to AdobeRegister for Barcamp Seattle.
Seattle Twestival 2009
On February 12, 2009, cities around the world attended an event called Twestival. Its composed of people in the Twitter community who gathered to raise money for a common purpose – clean and drinkable water for poorer countries. This was done in association with Charity: Water. It was a great implementation of the slogan “think global, act local”.
I attended the Seattle Twestival, and had a great time. Seattle has a strong Twitter community, and it was great to see many there Thursday night at the Spitfire Grill. I saw several of my friends there, and met some new people as well. It’s a fantastic thing to be able to meetup with these people. It strengthens your relationships when you take the online relationships offline. It solidifies the sense of community, and the feeling of connectedness.
I haven’t heard yet about the amount of funds raised, but I’ll updated this post when I find out. Whatever the outcome, every little bit helps. Some people’s lives are going to be changed for the better, and that’s a good thing.
Seattle Startup Weekend 2 Wrapup
This was the best startup weekend I’ve ever been to. Ok, so this was my first one, but it was still awesome. On friday night, about 150 people were there. As you know from previous posts, I had 2 ideas. I picked one, then pitched it to the group. I’m not well versed in public speaking so I was pretty nervous about giving the presentation. Sure, it’s only a few minutes, but I had never in my life spoken to 150 people. That’s kinda of a big deal for me. I actually handled it better than I had anticipated. Result: pleasantly surprised.
It’s a great opportunity to be able to interact, converse, and share ideas with so many smart, creative people. There were 48 project ideas pitched, of which 16 were built. Here’s a list of all the projects that were created.
During the event, Q13 News from Seattle came by . Here’s is video
It’s clear from this video, and the twitter messages after the event, that Tom Music’s project Obey The Decider is the favorite project. Cassie Wallender’s project Tweetsum is close second, with it’s talented development team and outstanding UI design. Their upcoming public beta release should arrive soon!
I look forward to seeing what happens with all of these projects.
Seattle Startup Weekend Idea 02
This is the second of two ideas I’m contributing for Seattle Startup Weekend.
Nomidate
This is a social network designed to augment your dating life. You create a profile to specify the qualities and attributes you’re looking for in someone that you would like to date. The feature that separates this site from others, is that your friends are making the initial connections to your potential mates, on your behalf.
The beauty of this is that it’s acceptable for married people to be on the site. In fact, I expect that married women will be one of the core user groups. It’s just like your buddy’s wife, who enjoys playing matchmaker for her single friends.
Here’s another scenario that I imagine would be quite common. Lets say there’s a guy, we’ll call him Clark. Clark has a neighbor and has a crush on her. We’ll call her Lana. Clark asks out Lana and they begin dating for a while. It’s comes to an end, but on good terms. Clark and Lana are both on Nomidate and connected. Lana’s profile mentions that she dated Clark, and thinks hes a good guy. Lana sends Chloe a message recommending that she date Clark. Chloe looks Lana’s profile, and sees that she’s rated as a good person for making matches. Chloe sends Clark a message saying Lana recommended him. Now Clark and Chloe can date.
Revenue model: Low signup fees + Vendor subsidies. Our partners post their articles in the advice section of the site. They pay us for that priviledge.
Partnership opportunities: Magazines like Cosmo, Men’s Health
UI: XHTML/CSS, PHP, MySQL
Seattle Startup Weekend Idea 01
UPDATE 2009-feb-11: I’m still interested in doing this project. however, it’ll be more challenging as I’ll need to do it in my spare time.
UPDATE 2009-feb-07: I was unable to get enough team members together, so I swtiched to the tweet reporter team.
UPDATE 2009-feb-06 : I selected this project, and pitched to the group. There were 48 projects submitted. This project made it into the Top 16. Were moving forward tomorrow morning. I’ll be at Peet’s Coffee in Fremont tomorrow at 8:15am for anyone that would like to discuss the project.
Original Content
I, like 150 others, am very much looking forward to the beginning of Seattle Startup Weekend this evening. This is the first idea of two.
Borrow Local Stuff.
This is a social network, but very different than most, as it emphasizes those who are closest to you geographically. Also trust is a key component. The way this works is you create a profile, which contains a catalogue. Then you add items to your catalogue that you’re willing to share with your friends. You might start small, with things like: books you’ve already read, CDs that you have, or maybe some tools you don’t use often.
Now that you’re set up, look for things that you want to borrow. Doing a search will look through the assets that your friends have, and return any potential matches. When you find something you like, you send a request for that asset. The owner will then accept/deny. If they accept your request, you meet them in some public place and make the exchange. They’ll update their record they delivered the item to you, and will enter a due date of when it should be returned. If you have not returned the item by the due date, you’ll receive an reminder email everyday until you have.
How can you ship things, you wonder? You cant. Items are delivered via the Sneakernet.
Revenue model: Free/Premium. Premium accounts will allow you get insurance on items of particular types. In order to borrow a premium item , you pay a rental fee.
Partnership: Delicious-Monster.com – They have cool software that makes adding things to your catalogue easy.
UI: xhtml/css, and add some AJAX-y features for good measure. Future versions will include mobile apps.
POTUSCamp
The election of the next U.S. President has occurred, and the results are in. Barack Obama is now the President-elect. Now is the time when he will be narrowing down his choices for who will be in his administration and work with for the next four years. He’s already begun the process, as evidenced by his new site Change.Gov. On this new site, he describes his agenda and lays out the key positions to be filled. I have an idea on how to do the latter – POTUSCamp.
POTUSCamp is a BarCamp-style event where President-Elect Obama would hear presentations from prospective personnel. It starts by selecting and inviting a large group of businessmen and politicians. Over the course of the event, each attendee prepares and delivers a presentation on why they want the job and how they’ll add value. They would describe what they want to achieve pertinent to their desired position. Their goals should comply with 2 directives:
Should make America better 4 years from now than it is today
There can be no budget increase
The presentations should be about 30-45 minutes. Barcamp typically has multiple tracks. However, since Obama needs to see every presentation it needs to be run as a single track event. Obama understands the power of the internet, as he made good use of it throughout his presidential campaign. So, it only makes sense to me that he should continue. So I’d like, and expect, to see POTUSCamp streamed over the internet. The American people would be able to post comments. If everything goes well, all the attendees will hear alot of great ideas and information, It’ll save Obama time since he’s not reading political TPS reports, everyone will have fun, and the American people will be enriched by it.
Why I should go to Gnomedex
Last night I received a tweet from Chris Pirillo. In the tweet, he offered a contest. Send him an email and tell him why you should get the free ticket to Gnomedex. So I wrote an email. Here’s an explanation about the contest from Chris. I’ve posted the email in it’s entirety below. If I win, I won’t be able to tell you until they say it’s ok.
Chris,
Last week I was a regular seattleite – living in the city, working on the eastside doing php development, and with a healthy interest in social networking sites and microblogging. Then I learned about Gnomedex and my world changed. I suddenly wanted to be great. I needed to surround myself with the thought leaders of new media. I wanted to do great things.
Gnomedex can enable me to do them. I know all things are possible. However, desire is not enough, and I’m going to need to take drastic measures to pay my bills _and_ go to Gnomedex. I may need to solicit myself on the streets. I fear this could lead to my imprisonment by a Jabba the Hut like entity and be forced to wear the gold bikini. I’m not in the best of shape, so trust when i tell you that no one needs to see that! Save me from the gold bikini!
So in my best holographic voice “Please Chris Pirillo – you’re my only hope”
-Andrew
