B. Mann Consulting

Photo by Ariane Whew. /me lets out big breath.

As always, this year's BarCamp Vancouver event was absolutely fantastic. Ideas, social media, intense thinking, tossing around concepts, learning from everyone, lots of fun, beer, eats, etc. etc.

Feedback and thoughts in no particular order.

Here we are at noon on the eve of BarCamp Vancouver 2007. Duane Storey and I are hacking some phone VoIP stuff, I'll be doing geo logging (surprise!) and....and I don't know what else will happen.

It was great to read through Roland's retrospective of BarCamp's we've been involved in. I think he missed BarCamp SF at the Microsoft offices...I caught part of that after a late flight in.

BarCamp Amsterdam has to be one of my favourites. Chris Pirillo came in with a big donation that helped (European) beer-fueled hacking, the Mediamatic people and offices were fantastic, and lots of my European friends were there that I don't get to see very often. Oh, right, and I got to cook for 50+ people over an open flame indoors :P

I love unconferences. I wasn't involved in organizing this year's BarCamp Vancouver, so thanks to the many organizers and helpers. Here's what Jordan Behan has to say:

After last year’s event, I was so amazed at the things I learned and the people I met that I wanted to help out anywhere I could this year. So I joined (invited myself onto) the organizing committee, and thus I feel it is my duty to share a bit of Barcamp How-to.

That's exactly the spirit we want to see. See you tonight...

• every event should make a list of "fun URLs" that get thought up at events -- and then registered, like http://www.myurlistoolong.com
• there were are as many great presentations that I couldn't make it to as I did attend
• we need to find a kit to stress-test wireless networks ahead of time...or revert to wired connections
• I got to talk to many great people...and also missed spending time with others (too many to mention...but Zug is definitely in my thoughts)
• Google needs to point out who the heck is going to talk about identity issues (from technical interop to privacy); also, say things in public about your logging policy
• every time I talk about microformats I passionately argue the opposite case; they are a great solution for putting mixed, structured content into one big text blob (i.e. a blog post with an event, a location, some people, and a resume); they are not a great solution for passing structured data between systems and/or for presenting a pure feed of one type of data (events, people, etc.)
  

BarCamp Vancouver is coming up quickly. It will take place in Bryght's new offices at the edge of Gastown. Now we have to talk to the construction dudes and make sure they finish in time. Add it to your calendar on upcoming.

Stewart Marshall actually emailed me, concerned that my name wasn't on the list...I stuck my name on the attendee list -- technically we're maxed at 90 people, so there are only 3 slots left as I am posting.

It's a great list of folks on there already, and I keep bumping into more that should come. Specifically, I attended the Google presentation at VanHPC last night, and bumped into a few folks:

• Michael Stewart, who works at BCIT and is digging into identity (and who tells me his friend Kate is moving to Vancouver...excellent, more cool locals)
• Chani, who is going back to school for a CS degree at UBC...she reminds me of some other smart, cool geek girls I know like Sacha Chua and Leigh Honeywell (that's a compliment)
• Michael Dyck, who spends time working on the Distributed Proofreaders project that helps with Project Gutenburg (he should talk about this at BarCamp Vancouver)
• Dale McGladdery, who is  my partner in crime in helping to organize the Vancouver Drupalleers and is looking for something to get into outside of his BigCo dayjob

I see Michael Stewart and Chani have already added themselves, and of course Dale is #5 with a bullet on the attendee list. So much other tech (BrightSide display tech) and people (yay! Bre is coming from out of town, Alex Williams will be podcasting) Good stuff!