Barcamp Roundup

The weeked ended, we threw all the rubbish out, the comfy couches got put away and the beanbags sent back with Red Bull. Post Mortem notes can be found on the wiki and the general feedback from this and from emails sent all seem to be positive – Barcamp NYC2 was seen as a success.

I was surprised at the number of people who did not turn up, it appears only about half the signees were there, but maybe there was a larger fluctuation than I was aware of. A hardcore bunch did stay overnight but I was not one of them in the end. Despite borrowing a sleeping bag (thanks dan) i ended up trekking back to the flat to sleep in my own bed.

A huge thankyou to Peter who was our contact at Microsoft and smoothed all the arrangements out. It was a wonderful space, plenty of room, wifi was wonderful and everything just worked well with the spatial logistics. He also pinned a target on himself by opening up sessions about Why Microsoft Sucks. After the first one focused on the OS only, he volunteered to go through it again. Interestingly, from my perspective some of the issues that were bought up I did not see as issues – because I know no difference having not worked on Macs but they were obviously painpoints for people who worked oer the 2 systems.

Another great session was from Dennis Crowley on Pervasive Games. Turning the world into a game is fun; one of the originals was Kit William’s Masquerade (just looking at this, it was probably published a few years before many in the audience were born). Technology adds an extra dimension to playing in the real world, with mobile phones, GPS, instant connectivity; the web adds the collaboration effort that allows quick solutioning (Masquerade would have probably taken a lot less than 3 years if redone now)

Looking forward to the next one – perhaps BarCamp SouthBeach
in the middle of january could be a good break.