Do BarCamps Need a Mid-Course Correction?
Photo by _dChris on Flickr
I notice that some of my social media friends in Vancouver have put together an excellent day tomorrow called WordCamp (a day about WordPress). There are sessions on using WordPress as a CMS, being curious for a living, SEO tips, and the inimitable Dave Olsen presenting “Art and Technology Are Old Pals.”1
I want to lovingly offer some constructive feedback to both their day and a trend in Camps I’ve noticed.
Are Camps Getting Too Expensive?
Tickets for the Vancouver event are $55 for the day. This surprised me. Generally, Camps in other areas/topics are free or priced low enough for most people to attend. Obviously, nobody’s making a profit here — the organizers are well-respected peeps in the local social media scene who donate a lot of time to various causes.
The Vancouver event includes a couple of coffee breaks, lunch, swag, and a social following the day. I’m not sure how much these cost, but my sense of Camps is that they’re meant to be an alternative to larger commercial conferences where tickets for a similar day might run several hundred dollars.
Are Camps Getting Too Organized?
But more to the point, I would argue that despite the title, the Vancouver event isn’t really a “camp” by the usual definition — self-organized on the day of the event.
Wikipedia’s definition:
“[Camps are organized by] sessions proposed and scheduled each day by attendees, mostly on-site, typically using white boards or paper taped to the wall…. BarCamps are based on simplified variations of Open Space Technology (OST), relying on the self-organizing character of OST.”
Vancouver’s WordPress tomorrow has a fantastic pre-set lineup — but does that not inherently make it not a Camp, by most definitions?
Last year, I trained to be an Open Space facilitator. BarCamps borrow heavily from Open Space. Their success is primarily based on the fact that those who attend drive the curriculum.
Do Camps Need a Mid-Course Correction?
Obviously, there is no official Camp company which protects its trademark. The use of “Camp” in an event name can be used by anyone, regardless of how the event is structured, how much it costs, and so on.
But perhaps events which are priced more than, say $20 or so, and those which have a pre-set agenda, shouldn’t use the “camp” designation?
What do you think?
- Locals still talk about Dave’s über-inspiring “Fuck Stats. Make Art” presentation at Northern Voice a couple of years ago for which he received a lengthy standing ovation. [↩]
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June 11th, 2010
Just posted: "Do BarCamps Need a Mid-Course Correction?" http://todmaff.in/fixbarcamps #barcamp #foocamp #wordcamp
June 11th, 2010
Just posted: "Do BarCamps Need a Mid-Course Correction?" http://todmaff.in/fixbarcamps #barcamp #foocamp #wordcamp
June 11th, 2010
RT @todmaffin: Just posted: "Do BarCamps Need a Mid-Course Correction?" http://todmaff.in/fixbarcamps #barcamp #foocamp #wordcamp#ectc10
June 11th, 2010
Thanks for kind words @todmaffin http://ow.ly/1XrGv Prepped a whole new batch of anecdotes, inspirations & actions to share at #wordcampyvr
June 11th, 2010
Camps were supposed to be “unconferences”, anarchic by their very nature. Unfortunately that gave them both the capacity to be spectacularly awesome, or spectacular failures, depending on how skilled the facilitators were and how into the self-organizing the participants were. The Friday un-sessions at NorthernVoice were a good example of participants self-organizing when they found the official stuff lacking, and THAT is the “barcamp” spirit at work, in my opinion.
Cost? That matters too, but in the days when universities are abrogating their responsibility to be community gathering spaces and are attempting to meet a mythical bottom line, I can understand why organizers need to charge. But maybe we need to consider untraditional venues (like outdoors – and make people put down the laptops
?
June 11th, 2010
I would agree. I stopped going to most camps some time ago because they stopped being camps. They became either an organized event (which normally sucks the promise from the event) or they were an ego trip for those setting them up.
Either way, yes, camps need a kick in the ass – or those who are pretending to host a camp but are really doing it for their own personal gain need a swift connection in their hind quarters.
We all knew this was coming, though… at least, I did.
June 12th, 2010
Do BarCamps Need a Mid-Course Correction? – Photo by _dChris on Flickr I notice that some of my social media friends… http://ow.ly/17HHXX
June 12th, 2010
In the Drupal Community, there are many local events which are Drupal Camps. They grew up to differentiate themselves from the very large international DrupalCons.
The “Camp” designator has little or nothing to do with the original BarCamp, other than they are generally non profit, inexpensive, and local.
I think the original _BarCamp_ needs a reboot. They are TOO accessible, and people come and treat it like a training session. And that's really how these other events came to be: if people expect to be spoon fed rather than just participating, then it's going to end up structured.
June 13th, 2010
WordCamp may have been started along the lines of BarCamp, but it's grown well beyond that. WordCamp is a registered trademark now I believe, and it's a conference that's meant to be run in a certain way, as pointed out by the guidelines on WordCamp.org. Having been to many WordCamps in other locations, I can definitely say that the bar gets raised higher with each iteration. While it's great to say you want to keep it cheap and grassroots, you then have to put up with people complaining that there's no live stream or after-the-fact videos of the presentations, something that has been the norm at many of these conferences.
Other than when workspace was around, I really haven't found a venue that we could use anywhere near the city that would allow for $20 ticket prices. We were lucky that the Museum offered us their space for free, but had that not been the case, most hotels were asking at least $5000 for the day, which would have eaten up the entire ticket price.
There are many real costs for these events that have to be recouped – for example, to make sure the audience could see the screen we had to put up dark curtains, at a cost of around $650 for the day.
TIckets for WordCamp started at $45, and most people got in at that level. We provided swag, lunch, a social, a full day of events, all day coffee, snacks, etc, and even managed to have a small dinner for the speakers and sponsors to thank everyone for donating their time. All talks were recorded and will be posted after the fact. I think in total that's good value.
You can argue that these types of events are run for people's egos, but I've never known that to be the case. Most people who were part of organizing WordCamp Vancouver started helping out six months ago. Many of us have companies whose business model revolves around an open source project such as WordPress, and helping put an event like this together is our way of giving back to the community.
As is the case, whenever a price gets assigned to something, people need to determine if it's worthwhile for them. But I think trying to draw an absolute line in the sand on how an event should be run and what is too expensive an event is a futile effort. If people don't find value in a conference at the price point presented, they simply can cost their vote by not attending.
June 14th, 2010
Excellent points, Duane.
June 22nd, 2010
Do BarCamps Need a Mid-Course Correction? http://ping.fm/Ydmp7
June 22nd, 2010
RT @jdcoffman: Do BarCamps Need a Mid-Course Correction? http://ping.fm/Ydmp7
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