Coach Thrasher

StartupCamp 2006, Day 1

Yesterday was the first day of StartupCamp 2006 and I'm pretty impressed with the format. This is an "unconference" event in which there's no schedule of things to talk about until people attending make the schedule. The whole event has strong overtones of openness, freedom, sharing, and passion. I think you have to be a risk taker to attend such an organic event where you don't know what to expect at all. It sets my expectations for the camp very low, and by virtue of that, anything that I learn there is a bonus. So far, I've learned a lot!

Camp attendees are invited to post about themselves to a StartupCamp Wiki, and invited to use the wiki to add any content that they like. This is is great because it's the attendees, and not the marketing budgets of sponsoring companies, that drives the schedule and information that's shared at the event.

On day one, and after reviewing the instant schedule I attended seminars on Critical Mass, Open Source Startups, Video Audio processing embedding and distribution, Mashups Startups Incubators, and How can big tech companies help you?.

The "unconference" format of the whole event is what makes it special, and more valuable than traditional conferences I've attended like Oracle's Open World, or Sun's Java One. Traditional conferences are to television as the Unconference is to the YouTube. Is that going too far? Na.

Posted at 08:12AM Nov 03, 2006 by jason in Software  |