After many long hours, close calls, and stressful moments, BarCampDC actually happened on Saturday, and it’s probably going to happen again in the future. No BarCamp — nor any conference, for that matter — goes without its points for improvement, and ours is no exception, but the four main objectives were accomplished with flying colors: people showed up, people learned a lot, people had fun, and people want to do it again.
Jason Garber, Justin Thorp, and I led the event, and we had some great help from other folks in the community, especially my friend from Grassroots, Matt Bradley, who showed up and really kicked some ass helping out in all sorts of ways. Thanks to Charlie Park, Rodney Degracia, Justin Stockton, John Croston, Paul Kittredge, the FH staff, and everyone else who leant a hand — there’s no way it could have happened without the help.
The Story
We all arrived at the offices of Fleishman-Hillard before 8:30 and got things set up, with some major help from the staff at FH, led by Brian Batchelder. John Croston brought in breakfast and coffee for all, and it was quite a spread. We didn’t get everyone in by 9:30 as planned, and instead were starting things up a little closer to 10am. It meant we had to compress some things in the morning, but it wasn’t too big a deal.
Once folks had pretty much arrived, we started the signup/scheduling process. This didn’t go as smoothly as one might have hoped, but it worked more or less okay. There was some unfortunate overlap of topics (two design talks at the same time, for instance) and some less than ideal distribution (almost nothing for designers in the afternoon), but almost all the talks got decent attendance, and we did manage to figure out which talks should be in the three differently-sized rooms fairly successfully.
Then, for the next seven hours, we had twenty-seven talks across three rooms, and around 100 people milling about. There were some books given away in the raffle, sponsors gave short talks (and sometimes t-shirts) before each session, and folks seemed to have a great time.
My team at Viget Labs represented amazingly. Andy and Brian were liveblogging the event. Thanny and Rob led a very active discussion on design obstacles that was still heated when time was up. I heard from many folks that Trace’s talk on Analytics was fantastic, and Erik and Jim made it to bring their Flash and design perspectives, respectively. Oh yeah, there were orange cups everywhere.
At the end of the day, we headed over to Cafe Asia, where we had the third floor booked. The staff there was very helpful, and folks consumed much Kirin, Sapporro, sake, and sushi. We barely managed to miss our expenditure guarantee (no big deal), but everyone had a great time, and it was a fantastic way to finish off the day.
A few other highlights: Kevin Lawver kicked off the day in the big room with a rails talk that was entertaining and informative, and his son Max was just flat-out awesome. Samantha Warren led a pretty engaging session on User Experience design — though it seemed like a group effort, and other folks occasionally took the lead, make no mistake that the success of this talk had a TON to do with Samantha’s leadership and preparation. It’s like good experience design — you only notice it when it’s not done well.
A Legit BarCamp?
The biggest criticism was that it swayed away from the BarCamp ideals in certain ways. This is true, but it was something that was forced by virtue of the fact that we had more than seventy signups within a couple days of creating the wiki page. We tried to keep some of the most visible aspects — focus on the local community, same-day scheduling, and a general leaning toward discussion — but other aspects had to give a bit, and I think it worked fairly well in the end. Of course I’d attend something more BarCamp style, but I think I would have preferred a bit more organization than less, given these constraints. Ultimately, it’s up to the community, so we’ll have to wait and see what people think.
In all, I had a great time, and I think other folks did too. If there’s one takeaway from BarCampDC, it should be that there are a ton of engaged and smart people in the community, and that we need to engage in this kind of mindshare more often than we do now. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens here in the next couple years — we’ll see what a little momentum can do in a town known for sluggish process.
Let me know what you all thought, good and bad, and I’ll see you all next time.
Thanks Jackson and others for making this happen. Had a great time and def learned a lot. This area def needs more of these functions. Kudos for you guys instigating it.
Jackson, you guys did a great job pulling this all together, and Max had a great time. I really appreciate everyone being cool with him being there, talking to him and making him feel welcome. He wants to present next time!!
Awesome work! Thank you so much for your efforts. It’s only been 24 hours and I already can’t wait for the next event!
You guys did a great job, Jackson! It was really great to see such a turn out from the local community.
Thanks guys… glad you enjoyed it.
Kevin: I’d LOVE to see Max present. Seriously. I hope he enjoys his new bag :)
Congratulations! You guys did a great job. Thanks for all of your hard work in pulling this together.
Thanks, Jackson—it was great to attend a Barcamp in the area and I am looking forward to the next one—
Hats off to you and the rest of the organization crew. I think it all went well - to outside observers - and I’m looking forward to seeing it happen again. I’ve also spent a bit of time cleaning up and organizing the wiki… should be a bit more complete now.
I think I told you this on Saturday - might have been after a few beers - but I think the different atmosphere and rules in DC change the game a bit. Limiting attendance wasn’t out of a elitist or any other motivation, it was forced by the space. And honestly, I can’t image what the rooms would have been like with just another 5-10 people in each.
As everyone else already said, you guys did an amazing job of pulling this together. It was a ton of work, but I think everyone there appreciated it. I know it was worth it for me, even with the last minute flight cost.
One thing we need next time, as I’m sure Cindy has pointed out, is more design-related sessions. Perhaps that’s up to the designers at the event to step up, but it would help to try and facilitate that as well.
Regardless, things went smoothly and I had a great time. Bring on the next one!
Congrats on a job well done. Thanks, for the compliment on the food I tried to make it look like we had done this before, even thought I was making it up as I went along.
I would even do the food thing again if needed.
thanks,
jfc iii
I still don’t believe we pulled it off. Maybe it’s a lack of sleep. Excellent work, sir, we really did something special.
Yeah Keith, I think some of the rules are different as you move to more “formal” and “procedural” areas like DC (as opposed to, say SF).
Pat, I think you’re right. But I also think that designers are probably scared away from the character of an unconference like BarCamp. Unconferences and their potential chaos are perhaps a little intimidating to those who are looking for something that is slick and well-put-together, as many designers are.
Designers may need a little bit of coaxing out for that kind of event, or perhaps just need an event to be more organized. I’d like to have seen more design sessions, but I’m not sure I’m too surprised that they didn’t happen.
Great job, Jackson (and Jason and Justin and everyone else)! I thoroughly enjoyed it and ate too much. Plus I ended up with an aluminium briefcase - how can that not be cool!
@Paul What the heck was in that case anyway?
That is a pretty badass case. And you are big on your flash keys…
[comment on what actually was in that case redacted by insidious large multinational corporation/entity with 3-letter acronym]
Ah, so that explains your recent handcuffs purchase… or does it?