Net Results:Unofficially, it's known as an "unconference". Officially, it's known as "BarCamp". Inasmuch, that is, as anything is ever overly formal about BarCamp, which is to conferences what open source is to software: a few people are vaguely in charge, lots of people get involved and contribute, everyone is a bit obsessive about technology, no one pays for anything or gets paid, and everyone gets a free T-shirt, writes Karlin Lillington
And in that special web way that can happen among a community with no overt structure, plenty of people knew it was on in Dublin last Saturday, even though there was no formal advertising. Hence nearly 100 people found themselves in one of the Digital Hub's buildings talking technology on a day off, with no requirement for them to be there.
Why go? Because, when you get people together who actually want to be doing something, and those people are excited enough about what they do to want to tell others, you tend to get people who work, advise or observe at the cutting edge.
As a matter of fact, if you wanted a snapshot of some of the most interesting developments in the tech field and some of the brightest tech start-ups in Ireland, directly from the people involved, with plenty of informed audience comment from people passionate about technology and its social, political and business implications, BarCamp Dublin, www.barcampdublin.com, was the place to be.
Lots of the attendees were also speakers because, at BarCamp, everyone is expected to get involved in some way. And if it is your first BarCamp, you are especially encouraged to present.
If you were presenting, on arrival you discovered your name and your talk title written on a large yellow Post-it next to a timetable roughly sketched out on a flip chart. If you were there early, you could select your favourite time for speaking and move your Post-it to that slot.
So if you went, what would you have heard about? How to develop applications using a range of development tools; the realities of local loop unbundling; a crash course on web usability; setting up a carbon neutral data centre; the legal implications of blogging; social media marketing; selling Web 2.0 (social networking applications and ideas) to financial services companies; and lots on social networking applications generally: blogging, the semantic web, mobile applications, and more.
In addition, the networking possibilities were rich and unusual - if you were a start-up company, you could chat to programmers, Enterprise Ireland, Microsoft, people with venture funding, journalists, bloggers, designers and lawyers who know all about the internet.
Perhaps it is needless to point out that the idea for BarCamp originated in California - in Palo Alto - in September 2005.
Why "BarCamp"? I had thought "Bar" was some sort of three-letter acronym (always beloved of tech types), but I was wrong - it refers to a "bar", as in a drinking establishment.
What's more important is how well the concept has taken off. A BarCamp "wiki" (a webpage which anyone can edit and add to) now serves as a central information site where anyone can go to propose and organise a BarCamp anywhere. To date there have been BarCamps in more than 30 cities.
Two more are coming up in Ireland: in Thurles in summer and Galway in autumn. Interestingly, the Thurles BarCamp won't be about technology but education. And this, surely, is where the BarCamp concept should go, to be used as a new way of setting up conferences on subjects where people come, not because they have to, but because they are engaged with the topic.
Blog: www.techno-culture.com
