Why Should I Attend Barcamp?

The foremost reason to attend any conference is the people.

Second, Barcamp is all about sharing knowledge. Like Ignite, Barcamp is a “geek of all stripes” event, featuring presentations by experts in hardware/software development, design, Internet marketing, social media, entrepreneurship, and other “geek” topics.

Finally, it's fun. From the Friday night prefunk through to Sunday afternoon, you'll be entertained and inspired. Barcamp is centrally-located, free, and attendees can come and go as they please, so sign up now.

The Basics

The main event will be August 14th and 15th (Saturday and Sunday) at the Adobe Conference Center, 701 N 34th St, Seattle, WA, 98103. Registration opens at 9AM, talks begin at 11AM. Each talk lasts 45 minutes, followed by a 15 minute transit/break period. We'll stop for lunch around 1pm. The Adobe Conference Center can accommondate two simultaneous talks; attendees pick which to attend (the “hallway track” is also an option).

Office Nomads, Seattle's preeminent coworking space, will host a prefunk (editor's note: I had never heard this term before moving to Seattle...) at 7pm on Friday, August 13th. The party will have beer and is a great way to check to see what Nomads, and coworking generally, has to offer. Office Nomads is located at 1617 Boylston in Capitol Hill.

The Talks

Since Barcamp is a participant-driven event, there isn't a preset schedule. With no social pressure to attend the talks, the onus is completely on the speaker to hold the audience's attention. In the past, we've found that Barcamp's incentive structure encourages high-quality, often advance-prepared, talks.

For attendees wishing to speak, we'll open the signup at 10AM on Saturday. Signups will be first-come, first-served, so on-time arrival is recommended for speakers. Adobe's oustanding Conference Center has microphones and projectors, so feel free to bring any laptops or additional visual aids.

What is BarCamp?

According to Wikipedia, Barcamp is “…an international network of user generated conferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants — often focusing on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies, social protocols, and open data formats."Wikipedia

Read more on the official Barcamp website.

What will BarCamp Seattle be like?

BarCamp Seattle is a one of a kind event where you are the conference and the content is only as good as the attendees. If you have never attended you need to know the basics. BarCamp is an open-format conference where the attendees are the presenters. Our subject matter will be directly tied to what ideas people bring to share with the community.

This years event is in a smaller space than in the past and so we have some limitations but limitations are what makes BarCamp great. Some people will want to give a presentation, but discussion groups, round tables, Q&A, brainstorming together are also options.

A typical day at BarCamp goes something like this…

From 8 to 10am, attendees plan the schedule on a large grid. We’ll have index cards at the ready. Write your session title on the card and choose a room and time slot. We will provide a blank form to enter in all of the sessions that you would like to attend for the day. We will kick off after a brief welcome message from the organizers and then we will vote on the content on the grid.

Some of our sessions from last year included:

• Discussions on Context
• Quiting Social Media
• Travel Hacking
• The art of the Wingman
• UI and accessibility
• Jquery techniques
• Robotics

Sponsorship

We’re looking for sponsors to help us get the following supplies we need:

• Name Badges
• Lanyards/Badge Holders
• Printing for event flyers
• …and more!

Donated supplies can have your company branding if desired, and you’ll receive a shout-out on our Sponsors page with a link to your website. Please contact us for specifics on donating supplies.