---
title: 'Portland types journey south for Social Web Foo Camp #swfoo'
date: '2009-04-18T09:56:50-07:00'
type: post
word_count: 424
char_count: 2589
tokens: 552
categories:
  - FooCamp
  - Oregon
  - Portland
  - swfoo
tags:
  - 'foo camp'
  - Portland
  - 'social web'
  - swfoo
---

# Portland types journey south for Social Web Foo Camp #swfoo

![Social Web Foo Camp](https://i0.wp.com/siliconflorist.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/foo-camp.gif?w=925)A who’s who of the social Web industry is currently camping out at the [O’Reilly](http://oreilly.com "O'Reilly") campus in Sebastapol for [Social Web Foo Camp](http://swfoo09.pbwiki.com/ "Social Web Foo Camp")—and a good chunk of them happen to be Portland folks.

What’s that? You know BarCamp but not Foo Camp?

So here’s the deal. To keep it brief, [Foo (Friends Of O’Reilly) Camp](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo_Camp "FOO Camp") began as an invite-only unconference that brought leading thinkers together to discuss issues and ideas.

> The event started as a joke between Tim O’Reilly and Sara Winge, O’Reilly’s VP of Corporate Communications. Sara had always wanted to run a “foo bar”—an open bar for “Friends of O’Reilly”—at one of O’Reilly’s conferences. That joke morphed into a brainstorm after the dot com bust left O’Reilly with lots of unused office space in its new buildings, creating the opportunity for Foo Camp.

In response, others started [BarCamp](http://barcamp.org/ "BarCamp") (because the complement to foo is obviously bar, as in foobar ne fubar), which was an unconference open to anyone.

If you’ve never been to a BarCamp, you’re in luck. [BarCamp Portland](http://barcamp.org/BarCampPortland "BarCamp Portland") is only a couple of weeks away.

But back to the Foo. Especially the Social Web Foo.

Right now, a bunch of the regular Portland gang is embroiled in interesting discussions down at O’Reilly. And camping, of course.

Like who? Well, like:

- [Nate DiNiro](http://twitter.com/unclenate "Nate DiNiro")
- [Brian Ellin](http://brianellin.com/ "Brian Ellin")
- [Dawn Foster](http://twitter.com/geekygirldawn "Dawn Foster")
- [Jason Glaspey](http://twitter.com/jasonglaspey "Jason Glaspey")
- [Pete Grillo](http://twitter.com/petegrillo "Pete Grillo")
- [Matt King](http://twitter.com/mattking "Matt King") (now officially back in Portland)
- [Marshall Kirkpatrick](http://twitter.com/marshallk "Marshall Kirkpatrick")
- [Scott Kveton](http://twitter.com/kveton "Scott Kveton") ([in absentia](http://twitter.com/kveton/status/1548056617))
- [Michael Richardson](http://twitter.com/mtrichardson "Michael Richardson")
- [Matt Tucker](http://twitter.com/matttucker "Matt Tucker")

You can keep an eye on the goings-on by watching the tweet stream from attendees on [Twitter Search for #swfoo](http://search.twitter.com/search?q=swfoo) or [Tagalus](http://tagal.us/tag/swfoo).

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