Saturday, May 12, 2007
BarCamp Portland -- First report
Since Yvette is out of town in Mississippi, helping to clean up the damage that Hurricane Katrina caused two years ago, I decided to relive my irresponsible bachelor years and called my best friend Phil earlier this week about hanging out this Sunday and drinking some of that fine bourbon I bought for him a few months ago. However I forgot Sunday was Mother's Day, and Phil had other obligations that day -- so tonight was the only night we could indulge together. Thus while I left BarCamp around 7:00pm tonight, I won't be posting a full report until tomorrow.
Despite this, I'm a little surprised that the reports about this gathering are still incomplete. Especially because we had a lot of people stuffed into the rooms at CubeSpace; I'd expect more people would be sharing their experiences and discoveries. So far only Donnie Berkholz has provided notes on the sessions he attended on his LiveJournal page. I guess that means I'll have to post my notes on the sessions I attended tomorrow.
Despite my evening activities, I will record a few immediate impressions. First was that a common theme of the sessions I attended -- maybe this reflects my own interest -- that thiswas a gathering of techies who had become aware of the importance of communities and relationships (both online and in real life), and were applying their analytical skills to them with the intent of understanding them and making them more useful. Another is that at least one participant was surprised at the number and variety of different techical user groups there are in Portland -- we techies need to build more bridges between ourselves. The last is that this had to be the first technical conference where a session was devoted to the craft of knitting; Audrey Eschright gets the credit for that innovation.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: Portland BarCamp
Despite this, I'm a little surprised that the reports about this gathering are still incomplete. Especially because we had a lot of people stuffed into the rooms at CubeSpace; I'd expect more people would be sharing their experiences and discoveries. So far only Donnie Berkholz has provided notes on the sessions he attended on his LiveJournal page. I guess that means I'll have to post my notes on the sessions I attended tomorrow.
Despite my evening activities, I will record a few immediate impressions. First was that a common theme of the sessions I attended -- maybe this reflects my own interest -- that thiswas a gathering of techies who had become aware of the importance of communities and relationships (both online and in real life), and were applying their analytical skills to them with the intent of understanding them and making them more useful. Another is that at least one participant was surprised at the number and variety of different techical user groups there are in Portland -- we techies need to build more bridges between ourselves. The last is that this had to be the first technical conference where a session was devoted to the craft of knitting; Audrey Eschright gets the credit for that innovation.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: Portland BarCamp
Labels: portland tech
