Filed under: Digital Strategy & Techno-culture, Geek stuff, Innovation, Innovative marketing, Trends stuff, creativity | Tags: barcamp, crayon, foocamp, innovative conferences, interesting south, samsung, sydney, unconference, Unconferences, USA
The wiki defines it as : An unconference is a conference where the content of the sessions is created and managed by the participants (generally day-by-day during the course of the event) rather than by one or more organizers in advance of the event. The term is primarily used in the geek community.
So where did it come from?
It all began one rainy day in the USA around 1984 with the first unofficial Hackers conference. In techland they have a regular conference called “Foo camps” where geeks get together & geek out over whatever they’re into at that moment. The problem is, Foo camps were always invitational which meant that there was an element of exclusivity around who was able to attend & who wasn’t. Thus, the idea of Barcamps was born. Barcamps began as a reaction to the exclusive elitest Foo camps. The idea was basically that people with a strong interest would publicly post their passion in meeting other like-minded folks and then the interested parties would self-organize a gathering. where everyone was welcome. Unlike the Foo, Barcamps were open to anyone & everyone & represented one of the very first unconferences.
Basically an “unconference” is everything a normal stuffy suity type conference is not - it’s open to anyone, anyone can come & anyone can speak. It disposes of the podiums, the rigid structure, the exclusive & polished speakers and the formalities in favour of a more democratised process where even the great unwashed may share their passions with the rest of us. (more…)
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