Can we all agree that our event tools will download the events to the standard calendar choices? If you are planning an event can we agree that you should add it to a site that allows me to download the details to my calendar. You will probably double the likely hood that I will remember to attend. Thanks.
{ Comments }
The second annual BarCampSeattle was held this weekend at the Adobe Center in Fremont. I was a member of this years planning board and also the MC for the event and I decided that I wanted to share my postmortem notes publicly in the spirit of BarCamp.
1. Getting sponsors in a down economy is tough.
We had really great sponsors this year, but we found it really tough to find people who would be wiling to donate in-kind or pass money directly to vendors. We didn’t have shirts or stickers for this reason alone. Because we don’t have a organizational structure we can’t really keep a bank account for expenses. We may have to form a non-profit to get over this hurdle. It seemed like with many sponsors if we went to them and said we want a grand for item X and they could write a check they were down. When we asked them to take a step beyond it made it a lot harder to secure the funding. Some of this was the economy some of this is the nature of the beast.
2. Event promotion is a good idea. Why didn’t I think of that?
Next year we need a promotion plan. Outside of twitter and FaceBook we did almost no promotion. We really needed to leverage our social circles more and push through the local tech blogs, Upcoming, and what ever other medium we can think of.
3. People are always ready to share.
Give people the right forum and everyone wants to talk. Lots of our sessions were dominated with conversation which is the point of BarCamp. My fear is that we will have lame presenters or sessions and the people will revolt. This year we had some really great sessions with everything from technical talks to fashion and almost all the ones I went to were incredibly conversational and fun.
4. Too much food is better than too little.
We had plenty of food: Twenty dozen top pot donuts. Boxes and boxes of pizza. Plenty of Red Bull and water. So what do you do when you have leftovers? Well we found out the homeless shelters were not interested. It was tough to get ride of and we wanted to do things in a way the could help the larger community. No luck. Ideas are welcome to improve this.
5. Seattle tech scene is getting there but is still pretty disorganized.
The Seattle tech scene often gets a bad wrap, some of it deserved some not. I think that the tech scene is getting better but Seattle is a big city with different needs and geek groups. Maybe we just need better events to bring the separate groups together.
I want to thank everyone who came out and participated in our little event. We were also very fortunate to have a few people fly up for the event. (Most notably Tara Hunt.) So until next year…
{ Comments }
It is that time of year when BarCamps are happening all over the globe and if you haven’t heard it is happening in Seattle again this week. I wanted to take a moment and remind you all why you should attend and of course threaten you with social isolation and geek rejection if you don’t attend. If you are a Maker, Technologist, Hacker, Scientist, Geek, Fashionista, Nerd, Crafter, Steampunk, or just want to hangout with some very cool and interesting people this is the event for you. The best part is it is FREE!
The basics; BarCamp is an international organization of unconferences (conferences with out an agenda) that focus on internet technology and culture. Unconferences are known for being democratically run, planned by volunteers, free to attend, and participatory in nature. BarCamp is known for being an event where geeks of all shapes and sizes can teach, learn, and develop new ideas.
Bring your “A” game because we want you to share, pontificate, argue, and get juiced on as much Red Bull (Full Disclosure: sponsor) as you can handle.
A quick list of things:
Looking for love in all the wrong places? BarCamp is for you. I promise that you will have plenty of opportunity to bait a nerd or even learn how to bait a nerd like last year. We may also get a presentation on nerd makeovers from the ever wise @AsianWingWoman. Come prepared to learn. Take my advice come smelling good.
Agenda: You decide!
Friday’s Office Nomads Open House with Tara Hunt
Date: Friday, June 12, 2009
Time: 6:00pm – 9:00pm
Street: 1617 Boylston Ave., Second Floor
City/Town: Seattle, WA
Google Map
BarCampSeattle
REGISTER NOW for Barcamp Seattle 2009 http://barcampseattle-09.pathable.com/
When: June 13-14, 2009
Where: Adobe Conference Center
701 N. 34th Street
Seattle, Washington 98103
{ Comments }
City administrators have sent a letter to a local Website operator, ordering her to remove information related to municipal offices, City Council members learned at Monday’s work session.
read more | digg story
{ Comments }
Well I am sitting here in the airport in Fort Myers Florida, waiting to get on the plane back to Seattle and I was going through my notes on the conference (Search Insider Summit). First of all, this conference was unlike any I have ever been to. The size and location, meant that the content was very focused and the discussion was very open. Despite the serious content the event had a lot of great moments to “network” and hangout with some of the best online strategists, marketers and agencies. The conference bills itself the following way:
The purpose of the Search Insider Summit is to bring the best minds in the industry together to share leading edge information and experience on search marketing in a think-tank environment, while exploring new technology, strategies and tactics for effective campaigns.
I highly recommend if you work in online strategy or search marketing to attend. Ken and his team do a great job! A couple of highlights:
In the current economic climate, attribution is a becoming more and more import to the business reporting and justification of spend. It seemed to be the buzzword of choice at the conference as most folks were spending more time leveraging and reporting to help optimize impression-based marketing initiatives as well as other types of initiatives and justify their budgets. The hope seems to be to simplify the analysis process and demonstrate how campaigns across the Internet influence website visitor acquisition, conversion and retention.
Both in conference sessions and out in the hallways it seemed that there was a significant discussions on how to get the most from agency and in-house partnerships. Especially given the current economy, companies are making a greater effort to establish better relationships and improve the cost versus the impact of the engagements.
My favorite session on the topic was led by Aaron Goldman was on how to improve the RFP process. I really enjoyed it, because it is clear that corporate accounting and relationship processes can be real pain for setting up the right kind of engagement. My (mostly uninformed) opinion is that both sides of the house could do a better job of determining the quality of engagements.
I spoke on a panel about agency vs. in-house with Topher Kohan, Marshall Clark and Erica Forrette. We discussed the need for transparency and what ideal models may look like. A funny moment for me came when Erica asked me if I had any thoughts about a comment from Marshall, and all I could muster was a “No, I am still groking what he just said.” It really was an ideal panel and I was happy to be a part of it.
As always it was great to see folks like Laura Lippay from Yahoo, Just Jenn, Gord Hotchkiss and many others. We all spent a ton of time on the beach and doing other activities together. It made for a great week.
UPDATES: Here are some great follow-ups by people who spent more time thinking about what to write than me. I will add more as I find them:
Jeremiah Andrick
{ Comments }
Follow me on Twitter:
