Cloudcamp

I attended my fifth barcamp Saturday. It was held to discuss the specific topic of Cloud Computing, and was thus called, CloudCamp. The venue was the same as the previous startup camp I blogged about (the UT ACTLab), with many of the same people. There were several local Cloud/Cluster/Virtual computing friends here in town however, who although on the attendee list, did not actually show.

Unlike previous barcamps, the topics were chosen through an unpanel process, where volunteers proposed topics, supplemented by suggestions from the audience. All attendees voted on the best topics, and then they were rearranged to fill all the available time slots in three rooms. It was an interesting experiment, I think that too much time was consumed in this stage, however.

Most of the information I obtained was valuable in some way, and I did get meet and network with one of the founders of Rackspace/Moosa. (In this economy, you can't have too big of a network!)

SxSWi, SxSWf and Barcamp Austin IV - Saturday

Although I'm taking in the whole SxSW experience this year (Interactive, Film and Music), I punted day one because of work commitments, and crappy weather Friday. I opted for a more manageable 9 straight days, rather than 10 (LOL). Today, I popped my Interactive and Film cherry.

Having never been to the Interactive portion of SxSW before, I was working with a clean slate of expectations. It did seem however, as though the Barcamp or unconference model has started to diffuse over into the conference world. Given the subject matter and people at SxSWi this was not too surprising.

I attended a number of sessions about startups and bootstrapping, and several specifically focused on Ruby on Rails. These were not new subject areas for me, I was more interested in seeing their mainstream adoption. Mid afternoon, I also managed to sneak out, and walk down the street a block to the Barcamp Austin IV location, at the old Paradox nightclub. I must say, although the location was great (relative to SxSW), the actual venue did not work for me. In fact, this is the first Barcamp I would call a Fail.

For the remainder of the day I hit several of the outside parties, saw Doc Searls interviewed, and straiffed the Dorkbot event, which included a guy that had built a large modular analog synthesizer (from modified PAIA kits and synthesizers.com). I ended the night with a pair of films, including Daryl Wein's and Zoe Lister-Jones', Breaking Upward. An absolutely fantastic movie in the narrative feature realm.

Now, off to prepare breakfast, and head downtown for my day 2.

Startup Camp

I attended another Barcamp event, Startup Camp. This one was held at the Texas Union Building at UT. Well attended and very interesting.

Steve Hazel of bit-torrent fame, gave a very interesting talk on codepad and his application engine. Also much discussion of Co-ops, as a business structure. Much to ponder.

Perceiving a Pattern

On two separate occasions this week, I observed buzz surfacing about things that I had experienced for the first time about a quarter ago. I am beginning to wonder whether there is something significant to this 3 month time period.

Bar Camp Austin III

I participated in this on a lark, while SxSWi was going on in force and really enjoyed the experience.

Birds of Feather (BOF) sessions have always been popular at Technical Conferences, and I've always felt that these were typically the most (and sometimes the only) valuable parts. Running an entire conference as a set of BOFs seemed to be a next logical step.

Then last year, I heard the Java Posse describe their Roundup, during their Podcast. It was the first time that I heard the words Open Space and Unconference. I was a little surprised then to see Seth Godin propose the idea a few days ago. He is usually one of the earliest adopters and has appeared as a TED speaker (which is at least in the right neighborhood). Needless to say, I think Open Space will begin to make inroads everywhere.

Branded or Artist Specific TV Stations

In an equally odd and coincidental fashion, I started seeing tweets and blurbs on Bob Lefsetz's site talking about Live from Daryl's House. This show was heavily marketed at SxSW Music this year, and I agree that it is amazing. I've been watching it regularly since first hearing about it. I am somewhat amused by the fact that I would have never considered my self a big Daryl Hall fan in the past.

The timing of this seems to indicate a pattern. BTW, check out the recent episode with Nick Lowe and Daryl!

Conclusion

I think the confluence of people and ideas here in Austin during SxSW, is a major catalyst. I don't believe that it's the breeding ground, but it is certainly a place where you can first observe the early adopters using new things in the wild. Of course, there's a jaded part of me that has tended to scoff at the value of SxSW, because some parts of it seem so commercialized (and political). The impact of the event seems obvious now.

This has led me to the conclusion that I should continue to keep my eye on certain new things in the Tech Industry. Right now, I am fascinated with the Ruby community and what is being done with cloud computing, github, and heroku. I'm sure they will be very prominent at Bar Camp Austin IV.

Barcamp Austin III

Having attended the SxSW Music Conference for the last 4 years, I have often considered also attending SxSW Interactive. Being a contractor however, I couldn't justify taking over a week off from work, since the 3 days off for the Music Fest are bad enough. After hearing about the Austin Barcamp, I was immediately interested.

Barcamp is an Open Space Conference (or unconference if you like). It is chaotic, anarchistic, emergent, and free (although attendees are encouraged to leave tips via PayPal, if they find it useful). I liked the concept, as soon as I read about it. Since I enjoyed the experience, I plan on leaving a donation.

This installment was held in the GDS&M offices on West 6th Street in Austin. I arrived around 1:30PM and ran into many old friends from the Austin Tech Community. In addition, I was also able to meet Michael Cote from the Drunk and Retired podcast, and rub elbows with other Internet Celebrities.

After attending 3 adhoc presentations, and engaging in multiple chats around the water cooler, the evening was topped off by the Karaoke Apocalypse, where a few lucky attendees got to sing, backed by a four piece band. A good time was had by, and I plan on attending future Barcamps, and other Open Space events.