On Monday, I participated in the first BarCamp Doylestown at the Moose Lodge in Doylestown Borough. Like some of the other participants, I had never heard of a BarCamp conference, but was pleasantly surprised by what I experienced.
The theme of the BarCamp (Un)conference was "Emerging Social Business" and the discussion and topics were all audience-driven. The whole idea behind a BarCamp (Un)conference is that the attendees decide what they want to discuss/hear and vote for popular topics.
The organizers made sure to let everyone know pre-event that the mood of the evening was casual. They also encouraged attendees to move around and pop into other discussions. So, if you found yourself in a boring discussion, you had the option to get up and move on to another discussion group. What a concept!
The planning committee also did a wonderful job of getting the word out using social media. A Twitter hashtag (#barcamp18901) was set up and I had been following the conversation for a few weeks prior to attending. In addition, the BarCamp Doylestown website was kept up-to-date and was extremely informative.
Before going, I had already familiarized myself with the topic choices on the website. When I entered the venue, I received some red dot stickers to vote for topics. The night was a whirlwind of activity from there.
There were three rounds of discussions with five choices for a topic in each round. Later, after mingling with some entrepreneurs, social media experts, and computer engineers, the topics for the evening were announced.
I sat in on three and a half discussions. They were Customer (or Client) Relationship Management (CRM) and the Customer of the Future, Corporate Blogging/Enterprise 2.0, and Thought Leadership. I say three and a half because I listened to two in the second round.
The evening was informative and fun. I was happy to have the opportunity to network with some forward-thinking people in the Bucks County area.
Check out Bucks Happening's website for another BarCamp experience recap and some great photos. Another post-event recap is posted on the BarCamp Doylestown website here. Lastly, there is a neat Wiki page that is worth checking out.
Thank you to all the organizers and sponsors! I look forward to the next BarCamp Doylestown!
(Logo credit: BarCamp Doylestown)
1 comment:
on behalf of the barcamp organizers, thanks for the coverage.
We'd love to have some of your readers at the next one!
Post a Comment