Silicon Florist

BarCamp Portland: The Weekend that was

Rick Turoczy | May 5, 2008

Another (dare I say “wildly successful”?) BarCamp Portland is in the books, thanks to the efforts of the Legion of Tech, the hosts, the sponsors, and—of course—the attendees and session leaders.

I could easily prattle on for pages about the wide range of interesting topics, the community building and strengthening, the learning opportunities both inside sessions and out, and the general just, well, geeky fun of the whole thing.

But, I always find roundups to be the best way to provide the most coherent and well-rounded picture of these kinds of events. There’s no possible way of covering the entire thing from one perspective, so only many perspectives will do.

• BarCamp Portland session topics and notes
• Twitter stream of “BarCampPortland” mentions
• Flickr photos tagged “BarCampPortland”
• Tom Offermann “First BarCamp for Me”
  “Not knowing what to expect when I arrived, I quickly found an enthusiastic crowd, plentiful food (bagels stacked high and all the Bubble Tea you could drink), and lots of interesting sessions, with topics ranging from WordPress to CrossFit to Bikes to Patents to Predicting the Stock Market.”
• Aaron Hockley “Decompressing from BarCampPortland“
  “I had a great time this weekend at BarCampPortland. A big thanks to everyone involved; the organizers did a great job with logistics and the participants brought a lot of knowledge into dozens of sessions on all sorts of topics.”
• Jake Kuramoto “My First BarCamp”
  “This weekend’s topics varied wildly, mostly around tech, primarily open source, which is very strong here in Portland. There were several other, “only in Portland” sessions like “How to raise chickens sustainably” hosted by Legion of Tech board member, organizer and chicken maven Selena Deckelmann.”
• Selena Deckelmann “Bar Camp Portland: What a weekend“
  “I’m still buzzing from BarCampPortland. I loved every minute of it, and managed to learn a ton from all the amazing people in Portland. I met a ton of new people, and started several more projects.”
• Andy Lester “Post-Its from BarCampPortland“
  “Makes me want to start up a Bar Camp Chicago. And move to Portland.”
• Lynn Fredricks “BarCamp Unconferences: Tech Trade Get Togethers“
  “This wasn’t just a geekfest for the twenty something set; there was an even mix of ages and experience. I truly felt I left the unconference carrying with me more useful new relationships and technology information than I had from the last few conventions I have attended.”
• George Huff “BarCamp Portland“
  “Anytime a bunch of geeks get together there is a lot of brain power getting kicked around, so that’s pretty awesome. What’s great is the general goodwill everyone has. People are happy to be here and love a chance to have their thoughts and ideas expressed or learn new ones.”
• Silicon Florist links from day 1 of BarCamp Portland
• And easily the winner for the “perspective on BarCamp Portland that I—even with access to similar Dirty Dancing references—could never have accurately captured” from Miss Burrows “At BarCamp, you can have the time of your life”

That’s what I’ve seen so far.

No doubt, many people are still recovering and gathering their thoughts.

If I’ve missed you or if you’ve just posted your thoughts, please by all means, comment below with a link to your post or resource, and I’ll be happy to add it to the list.