So finally I got around to fixing the metadata on my Flickr photos which I've uploaded from BarCampLondon3. Please note I tried to take a picture of every single person during the introductions and 3 tags. This time I got a good selection of everyone.
Anyway how did things go? Well from my point of view – great! Without a douht it was the best BarCamp i've arranged or ever been to. Not only that but it was one of the best weekends I've ever had in my life. the whole event became a geek wonderland. After filling our skulls with ideas and inspiration it was on to a great dinner supplied fresh from the Google on site chef.
And lets just pause on that. Saturday morning a nice decent lunch. People were already impressed with the large fridges stocked with drinks and ice creams. Then for dinner a full thanksgiving meal complete with veg and vegan options, just perfect for the last weekend in November. Google's chef wanted to do a live BBQ on the tereace of the 5th floor office but it was a little cold for a real BBQ.
If things couldn't get any better they did. At midnight a chocolate fountain with marshmellows and strawberries plus freshly made crepes (pancakes). I mean check out the pictures of the hour of pure sugar.
Breakfast and lunch on Sunday were also great but how can you beat such a great midnight feast?
So the food and drinks were spot on. The Google offices are great lots of character and lots of well equipt rooms. For BarCampLondon we had a good selection of rooms and even some rooms without projectors. We thought we might try that out this time and I did see some sessions in them during the weekend.
One thing we should have done is added a couple more rooms, as that would have eased the conjestion in some rooms. However I didn't want to spread the people too thinly by opening to many rooms and it would have caused Google even more problems with security. Can I also say how brave Google were, having people wondering past working peoples desks. But wow you really got a feel of what it might be like to work in such a dynamic place.
What sessions did I go to? (thanks Jeremy keith again for doing the microformats transformed version).
Saturday
- Caja and OpenSocial.
- BBC programmes API: a first look.
- Messaging scales
- Build your lifestream with Yahoo Pipes
- Take your camera out of auto.
- Geeky Kids
Sunday
- TV tubes – automating your TV downloads.
- Hacking people.
- 101 uses for Twitter.
- The desktop is not dead.
- Using puzzles, stories and ARGs in brand marketing and the perils therein.
- Talking about the future of BarCamps and the past of some volunteer-run events.
- Data portability.
Ones with emphases are my own sessions. I actually uploaded the slides for the data portability one .
more to come…
