BarCamp Ordina | Wisdom 2008
Yesterday was the first BarCamp that I helped organizing (in fact it also was the first BarCamp I attended). Of course a lot of people helped me organizing and volunteered for activities during the BarCamp. It was also the first BarCamp that Ordina | Wisdom, the company I work form sponsored and helped to organize. I think it also was the first BarCamp in Groningen.
Although I got stuck in traffic and it took me two hours to get to the venue (normally it would take me 40 minutes), the Barcamp was a big success! Everybody I talked to really enjoyed it and was really inspired by the great talks and the opportunity to exchange ideas with other interesting people.
Personally, I had no idea what to expect from the Barcamp (even though I initiated and organized it), but I also enjoyed it very much. The Barcamp had a really nice informal atmosphere, lots of interesing people with interesting ideas and the quality of the talks was really good. A lot of people I talked to were also amazed by the fact that a low budget event that is free for the attendees (especially if you compare it to a normal conference where they charge people 1000 euro’s or more) could generate so much buzz and excitement and have so many high quality talks.
If you want to know more, visit the BarCamp site:
Of course you can’t register anymore (the BarCamp was yesterday) but if you follow the weblog link you can read a couple of blog articles, see what people twittered during the Barcamp and find pictures. We will also put up some links there to the presentations (we asked everyone to post their talks to http://www.slideshare.net/tag/barcampwisdom2008) and the video’s when they are ready.
I would like to thank everyone who came to the BarCamp and made it such a big success! Next year we will definitely organize another BarCamp!
P.S.: I might even organize a small BarCamp myself in my own hometown Stadskanaal: not a really buzzing IT city (not even a city), but who knows what people live nearby? Oh well, maybe I am getting a bit too enthusiastic about the whole BarCamp thing now … 
