BarCamp is an international network of user-generated conferences (or unconferences). They are open, participatory workshop-events, the content of which is provided by participants. The first BarCamps focused on early-stage web applications, and were related to open source technologies, social protocols, and open data formats. The format has also been used for a variety of other topics, including public transit, health care, and political organizing.
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The name BarCamp is a playful allusion to the event's origins, with reference to the programmer slang term, foobar: BarCamp arose as an open-to-the-public alternative to Foo Camp, which is an annual invitation-only (for Friends of O'Reilly) participant-driven conference hosted by Tim O'Reilly.
The first BarCamp was held in Palo Alto, California, from August 19–21, 2005, in the offices of Socialtext. It was organized in less than one week,[1] from concept to event, with 200 attendees. Since then, BarCamps have been held in over 350 cities around the world, in North America, South America, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Australasia and Asia. To mark the first anniversary of BarCamp, BarCampEarth[2] was held in multiple locations world wide on August 25–27, 2006. The second anniversary of BarCamp, BarCampBlock,[3] was held in Palo Alto at the original location, but also over a three block radius on August 18–19, 2007, and was attended by over 800 people.[4] The largest recorded BarCamp happened in February 2011 with over 4700 confirmed registered attendees in Yangon, Myanmar (Burma). The previous year (January 2010) BarCamp Yangon attracted over 2700 attendees (confirmed with registration forms) Barcamp Yangon in Global Voices.[5]
BarCamp makes their organizational process freely available, codifying it in a publicly available wiki. In addition to the BarCamp-branded network, it is also a model for user-generated conferences in other fields and for more specialized applications such as WordCamp,[6] PodCamp,[7] Seattle Mind Camp,[8] CrisisCamp[9] and THATCamp.[10] The real estate industry has adopted the Barcamp format with over 30 RE Barcamps completed and scheduled throughout the U.S. with plans underway to take the format internationally.[11] The BarCamp format has been used to organize events in foreign countries like the French-language VinoCamps[12] which have been held in wine regions across France. Important software innovations like JQuery have been released a BarCamp.
BarCamps are organized and evangelized largely through the web; anyone can initiate a BarCamp using the BarCamp wiki.[13]
The procedural framework consists of sessions proposed and scheduled each day by attendees, mostly on-site, typically using whiteboards or paper taped to the wall. This approach has been dubbed to play on words, The Open Grid[14] approach.
FooCamps and BarCamps are based on simplified variations of Open Space Technology (OST), relying on the self-organizing character of OST. Unlike classical conference formats, BarCamps and OST rely on the passion and the responsibility of the participants.
Although the format is loosely structured, there are rules[15] at BarCamp. All attendees are encouraged to present or facilitate a session. Everyone is also asked to share information and experiences of the event via public web channels, including blogs, photo sharing, social bookmarking, twitter, wikis, and IRC. This encouragement to share is a deliberate change from the "off-the-record by default" and "no recordings" rules at many invite-only participant driven conferences. It also turns a physical, face-to-face event into a 'hybrid event' which enables remote online engagement with Barcamp participants.
Venues typically provide basic services. Free network access, usually WiFi, is crucial. Following the model of Foo Camp, the venue also makes space for the attendees, or BarCampers, to literally camp out overnight. Thus, BarCamps rely on securing sponsorship, ranging from the venue and network access to beverages and food.
Attendance is typically monetarily free and generally restricted only by space constraints. Participants are typically encouraged to sign up in advance.
This form of self-organized user generated conferences are conceptually related to hackers' meetings in Europe, especially those nearer to anarchism and autonomism, happening since the '90s in Temporary Autonomous Zones or other occupied places. However, BarCamps lack the political motivations and are actually quite integrated with the mainstream ICT industry, often getting substantial sponsorships from major corporations.
Most BarCamps use the agenda wall technique from Open Space methodology. Some, like RecentChangesCamp, BEAST (east bay Bloggers) Camp, HealthCamp and others, use the whole of the Open Space methodology.
The BoF sessions of IETF meetings may also have provided inspiration.
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