So I’m back from a pretty awesome time at SocialDevCamp East at the University of Baltimore. I think it was pretty well organized and had a great turnout – over 100 attendees that gathered to learn all about what issues are surrounding the social web. The issues were thought-provoking and I managed to get some good video coverage (hopefully they turned out well…but the size is causing me to load them online slowly) .
I enjoyed the different sessions that went on and met a few people…unfortunately I think at these types of things I’m a little bit technology insufficient. Yes, I DID capture a few sessions using my webcam, but unfortunately I think I need to load up on some other fancy equipment to reach the perfection to which I so desire. 🙂
Nevertheless, the one thing that I’ve realized after attending Podcamp DC, WidgetDevCamp, and now SocialDevCamp East is that the true audience of these events are primarily enthusiasts, evangalists, and plenty of startups. Yes, I guess you could say that startups can be considered developers, but when I hear that there’s a “DevCamp”, I’m under the assumption that there will be hands on development or some sort of development projects being undertaken. How I thought wrong. But you know, that’s alright. I enjoyed this being a time where all those enthusiasts and folks who have a desire to be in this industry gather together and discuss. There are people from all different types of companies and the benefit of being especially at SocialDevCamp is the capability of learning from others in an informal discussion. There’s no structured environment or spreading of any propaganda. You can freely come and go as you wish and have the ability to network and form a real-life network to take advantage of.
Having these interactions at SocialDevCamp is what’s great about attending these BarCamp style. I don’t know what else to mention about this event, but it was done successfully and what helped create a true “unconference” was allowing the attendees to set the agenda. The organizers were pretty liberal in allowing folks to vote on their session topics and they were led by a variety of people, even those that didn’t even propose the topic idea in the first place!
Kudos to Ann Bernard, Keith Casey, and David Troy. More information can be found on Summize, Viddler, Flicker, or check out their Wiki page to see who attended.
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