As I mentioned previously, having noted that Barcamp London is coming around again, I decided to get a little more involved this time and attended one of the recent meetings. It was an interesting experience. I hope to stay involved although I'm not being awfully useful to the team at the moment as the major focus is on earning sponsorship for the event.
And that's what's actually so interesting to me. To date, the events I have helped to run have varied from small scale personal parties, through large parties to raise the profile of a cause at a convention, up to conventions themselves. The biggest of these was Eastercon in 2009. What most people imagine when I talk about a science fiction convention is a hall full of people listening to William Shatner and queueing up for his autograph, and while that's a valid understanding to hold, there are more kinds of conventions in existence. The ones I frequent and have had a hand in organising are a rather different beast. Ask around the community and you'll find many people talking about the difference between an entry ticket and a membership. Eastercon encourages its attendees to see themselves as members, to be a part of the whole, to offer their own expertise and ideas and to be more than a passive consumer. These events are run on a relatively small budget, drawn largely from selling the memberships. The guests are not big name TV stars, but there is a big focus on the literary and the big name guests will generally be authors, some of whom attend the convention outside of their invitations to be guests of honour.
The budget is never fixed, a committee can never be sure what they will have to spend, they can only estimate based on how many they expect are yet to sign up. However, the money is assumed to a degree, and allocated to modest costs while hard negotiating is done to get a decent hotel deal that usually involves a certain amount of required bar spend, and filled hotel rooms in order for heavily discounted or free meeting space.
With that all taken as known, the main work of the committee is to work on the programme, to find the volunteers, to slot everyone into a vast grid to try to get a nice balance of programme streams that don't clash horribly with one another, and to make contact to get the people on the panels or giving the talks ready to perform. It's all fairly informal, but the programme is a major headscratch.
That's where Barcamps differ from conventions massively. The convention is closer to the traditional conference, however the conference has a more professional air, while the barcamp has the same cameraderie of a convention. While a con expects to find much of the membership visiting the bar regularly, Barcamps have no such thing, but may offer drinks and encourage the attendees to visit a nearby pub.
The meeting I attended was looking closely at the venue for the first time, and that was almost exactly like the hotel visits I've been on in the past. The people leading things scratch their heads and try to view the room from various angles, working out how they best fit together for their varied purposes and envisioning the partition walls pulled back. But instead of a hotel with some awkward and eager to please hotel staff leading the tour, we had a university building and a knowledgable faculty member enthusing about how it could all work.
It's intriguing to be in early and seeing behind the scenes, but I'm at a bit of a loss for suitable sponsors to approach directly myself. Unfortunately I'm unlikely to be able to make the next meeting, so I'm hoping to find some other way to make myself useful, and am keeping my eyes open for more of the differences and similarities and wondering if there are lessons to be learned in either direction.
Showing posts with label barcamp. Show all posts
Showing posts with label barcamp. Show all posts
Sunday, 15 August 2010
Sunday, 4 July 2010
Reflections on Social Media Camp 2009
Last year I went to Social Media Camp in April, and I wrote the bulk of this post directly thereafter. I was inspired to start up a blog but I was unfocused and didn't really have anything in particular that I wanted to write about. I also caught a very nasty illness which in retrospect I think was swine 'flu and the whole blogging thing never really took off. I'm going to kill off that quickly aborted attempt, but I'm importing the things that are worth saving, and this is one of them:
I've had Neil Crosby on various social media friends lists for a long time since way back when some of my Red Dwarf fan friends got friendly with the Buffy and Angel side of fandom, and although we've met in person a couple of times, we don't know each other well. All the same, when I saw him mention Social Media Camp on Twitter I thought it worth a look and immediately signed up for tickets which turned out to be in very short supply.
Social Media Camp is in the tradition of bar camps, which are get togethers for geeks, where a conference is effectively arranged on the spot once everyone is through the door. The BBC has sponsored a couple, and there have been various others that have looked interesting but I have a very full calendar when you divide it into the time I spend on conventions, larp and general socialising fare such as parties. I've never been available when the interesting things were happening until now.
Once signed up, nerves set in a tad. I knew I was meant to volunteer or present, but at all the conferences and work based talks I've been to, the person on the stage really knows their stuff, and has well prepared slides. So the whole idea of presenting didn't appeal, but neither did the idea of reneging on the deal. Right up until the night before I was considering pulling out, but in the end I turned up, Tweeting on the way to the effect that I was mildly nervous.
The venue was easy to find, and a great host to the event, but my vague idea of volunteering to help out melted away as I came in and was pointed at the badges, told it was a DIY affair, and directed downstairs for coffee (which I mostly don't drink). People were gathering and doing the meet and greet thing and I felt out of place, and sat myself down wondering how early it would be reasonable to run away back home.
And then people started to actually talk to me. Terence had already replied to my Tweet, noticing it via the hashtag of #smclondon, and told me to discard the nerves, it would be fine. Kat joined in with him, enthusing about how it would be fine to talk, don't be nervous, and just throw myself into it and enjoy. I signed up for the photographic scavenger hunt and relaxed.
In the end I wound up attending a talk in each slot, and even presenting one, entirely off the cuff, in a later slot. It was barely on topic, being about live action roleplay, but it was something I felt confident enough to describe and it seemed suitably geeky, if not quite linked to the "media" side of social media, and the handful of people who came to listen seemed to be engaged.
The venue was great, the talks were interesting, the food was lavish and free drinks abounded. Everyone I encountered was friendly and enthusiastic and perhaps the most uncomfortable experience was during one of the discussions where the younger members were put on the spot and confronted by people demanding to know "So what pisses you off? How do you feel about people marketing to you? How should we be doing it?" and so on. Sure, they put themselves on the spot and invited it, but it felt uncomfortably confrontational to me. The highlight talk for me was Terence Eden's talk about working with porn, although I'd expected something a little different from the description, somehow I'd expected it to be more about how porn dominates the internet and how no social media site or application can escape it, and how best to deal with that fact. But it was fascinating and well presented.
It was interesting to note that I seemed to inhabit an overlapping but different social media network corner, and some of the things I mentioned such as audioboo were exotic and barely known to others, while they had shared knowledge of blogs I was unaware of. I like that narrow overlap, though, it invites a wider range of conversation and sharing.
It was a really good day and I definitely intend to sign up for more things along those lines in future, where my calendar and finances allow. Kudos to Vero for pulling it all together.
People:
Vero: http://www.thatcanadiangirl.co.uk/
Terence: http://shkspr.mobi/blog/
Kat: http://www.safetygoat.co.uk/blog/
I've had Neil Crosby on various social media friends lists for a long time since way back when some of my Red Dwarf fan friends got friendly with the Buffy and Angel side of fandom, and although we've met in person a couple of times, we don't know each other well. All the same, when I saw him mention Social Media Camp on Twitter I thought it worth a look and immediately signed up for tickets which turned out to be in very short supply.
Social Media Camp is in the tradition of bar camps, which are get togethers for geeks, where a conference is effectively arranged on the spot once everyone is through the door. The BBC has sponsored a couple, and there have been various others that have looked interesting but I have a very full calendar when you divide it into the time I spend on conventions, larp and general socialising fare such as parties. I've never been available when the interesting things were happening until now.
Once signed up, nerves set in a tad. I knew I was meant to volunteer or present, but at all the conferences and work based talks I've been to, the person on the stage really knows their stuff, and has well prepared slides. So the whole idea of presenting didn't appeal, but neither did the idea of reneging on the deal. Right up until the night before I was considering pulling out, but in the end I turned up, Tweeting on the way to the effect that I was mildly nervous.
The venue was easy to find, and a great host to the event, but my vague idea of volunteering to help out melted away as I came in and was pointed at the badges, told it was a DIY affair, and directed downstairs for coffee (which I mostly don't drink). People were gathering and doing the meet and greet thing and I felt out of place, and sat myself down wondering how early it would be reasonable to run away back home.
And then people started to actually talk to me. Terence had already replied to my Tweet, noticing it via the hashtag of #smclondon, and told me to discard the nerves, it would be fine. Kat joined in with him, enthusing about how it would be fine to talk, don't be nervous, and just throw myself into it and enjoy. I signed up for the photographic scavenger hunt and relaxed.
In the end I wound up attending a talk in each slot, and even presenting one, entirely off the cuff, in a later slot. It was barely on topic, being about live action roleplay, but it was something I felt confident enough to describe and it seemed suitably geeky, if not quite linked to the "media" side of social media, and the handful of people who came to listen seemed to be engaged.
The venue was great, the talks were interesting, the food was lavish and free drinks abounded. Everyone I encountered was friendly and enthusiastic and perhaps the most uncomfortable experience was during one of the discussions where the younger members were put on the spot and confronted by people demanding to know "So what pisses you off? How do you feel about people marketing to you? How should we be doing it?" and so on. Sure, they put themselves on the spot and invited it, but it felt uncomfortably confrontational to me. The highlight talk for me was Terence Eden's talk about working with porn, although I'd expected something a little different from the description, somehow I'd expected it to be more about how porn dominates the internet and how no social media site or application can escape it, and how best to deal with that fact. But it was fascinating and well presented.
It was interesting to note that I seemed to inhabit an overlapping but different social media network corner, and some of the things I mentioned such as audioboo were exotic and barely known to others, while they had shared knowledge of blogs I was unaware of. I like that narrow overlap, though, it invites a wider range of conversation and sharing.
It was a really good day and I definitely intend to sign up for more things along those lines in future, where my calendar and finances allow. Kudos to Vero for pulling it all together.
People:
Vero: http://www.thatcanadiangirl.co.uk/
Terence: http://shkspr.mobi/blog/
Kat: http://www.safetygoat.co.uk/blog/
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