barCamp - one under the belt

By Mike Riversdale /
[Updated with a few more links - at the bottom dear heart]

Well, the BarCampWellingtonNZegov was a giggle in many ways!

Having spent a good part of Friday afternoon assisting Hannah and Kara with sticking up posters, ensuring WiFi was available and shifting chairs Saturday morning came around a little quick. Of course it started with Meg, progressed directly into England v South Africa before a cab ride into to open up the Fronde Queen's Wharf offices for the un-conference.

After much milling, a few coffees and some slight guidance around 70 people plotted an agenda of 5-6 blocks of 4 concurrent sessions during the day. All very easily, no pain, no real hassle and certainly no "You must talk about ...". Post-Its, large pieces of paper and pens ... the best agile equipment in the world.

It started brilliantly with a packed out room talking around "what is it that the Government needs to 'enter into' when we talk about "2.0"".

Oh, before I continue - I won't go into any detail about the sessions as it seemed to me there were people connected and blogging in every room and every possible time - I will link at the bottom.

However, Che, for me, put the whole challenge (and potential solution) into a nutshell with a cracking analogy of "Web 2.0" (original posting) being like a public park where anyone can enter, rules are generated by the people interacting within the park but are governed by NZ laws. He continued by saying that the Government can't really play out in the public park but probably need a 'controllable' non-public space that feels like the park much like a shopping mall is. Whilst the mall feels public it isn't - for instance you can be barred entry into a mall.

As I say, I won't blog every word but that analogy (and the thinking behind it) has certainly pricked my brain in a good way and I will think on and try and see what I can do to bring something like that to fruition.

The only other session I really want to menti0n was a small one around microformats and in particular how Min Of Environment is about to launch a new website on Tuesday that just uses them. Once it's up I'll show you more and explain why I (and others) think this is brilliant.

Other highlights of the day include:
  • Meeting fellow Wellingtonista
    Note: I am shocking at getting out to Wellingonista drinks and miss out on so much - damn my family life and pesky adorable kids
  • Food. The amount. The quality. The price ($0)
  • The cool T-Shirt ... red for girls, blue for boys is what we discovered after we'd handed most out and letting people just choose, sorry everyone.
  • Coffee's from Hannah and Kara.
  • Working with Mike and Chris to get it off the ground and running
  • Having Liz and the kids turn up for lunch - awesome.
    And Jack got to see where his Welsh flag being proudly displayed at the Fronde 2.0 Project Area ... alongside his newly acquired All Blacks flag.
  • Meeting people. People I know but haven't said hi to for ages, people I read, people I have long admired and all the others I knew nothing of but am glad I said hi to
And so, what next?
Watch the wiki to find out but probably something along the lines of these (thanks Taniwhaiti):
And there's always Webstock in February!

Links:
I will add more as I discover them ...

Flickr: Now thats a real BarCamp.

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