52 Bicycles

Quick qualifier: while I helped in a small part, Shimon Rura, Devon Biondi (and her great crew at Monster Labs) and others made Barcamp a success through their extraordinary effort and commitment.

So Shimon posted his observations, and I would like to trackback my lessons learned from my perspective as a dogface:

1. When possible, listen to Mike Walsh’s experience. The guy knows his stuff in organizing conferences, and his participation made everything he touched run more smoothly.
2. When Mike’s not available, trust Shimon’s instinct, which was guided by a communitarian spirit that then endowed the event itself.
3. Lead by example, and people will follow. Rod Begbie getting the introductions started was a good thing. The schedule filled up over the course of the day as people gained confidence that “anyone can speak.”
4. Small workshops work great: the UI workshop and “Drop Your Pants” quick-pitch sessions were for me the gems of the weekend.
5. Inexperienced speakers run long: I had never given a talk on being a startup (too busy being a startup) and so I made rookie mistakes that cut into the conversation time. Setting a hard limit (like 15-20 minutes is reasonable) for monologue to make a little more time for discussion would be good.
6. Intermissions are important: the travel time between rooms was greater than zero, and there was inevitably appetite to keep talking about subjects beyond the scheduled time. I was bummed that I had to bail from a great session on giving presentations - in order to be on time for my own presentation. I might have been inclined to Knowing what I know now, I would make intermission 10 minutes, and maybe the sessions 35 minutes.
7. Brown paper was a brilliant stroke for setting up the organizational grid. Kudos to Devon for bringing the old school consulting tools out.
8. Small is beautiful: I actually had a better time on Sunday, when we had 1/3rd the crowd, because we could better talk and have the kinds of dialogue that make the conference “un”, rather than a huge crowd with a couple of stars.
9. Variety is the spice of unconferences: I went to a few sessions on topics that had no practical application for me, including mapping. Fascinating, and they expanded my horizons. So encouraging participation from people outside the core domains of the organizers is very worthwhile.
10. Get Rod Begbie to speak on the morning of Day 1: He was eloquent and accessible in talking about how to give a better presentation, and that lesson (and/or sessions on “how to give a barcamp talk) would have been helpful in smoothing the participation and making it more fun for all. As was, he presented the morning of day 2.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 7th, 2006 at 2:32 pm and is filed under Technology Business, Barcamp. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. Reddit This