Fun And Games At BarCampLA

I spent last weekend at BarCampLA, an "un-conference" for technophiles. The BarCamp concept is that people from various computer related communities come together to talk about whatever interesting ideas they're exploring at the time. There's a number of sessions each day, and the sessions are presented by the attendees. No featured guests, the whole activity soup to nuts is organized and created by the community. It's a great idea, and in Los Angeles it's been working beautifully.

I don't know about other BarCamps, but in LA the community core seems to be very hacker-based, in most senses of the word hacker. You know the Gibson quote "The street finds its own uses for things"? Well, BarCampLA is mostly made up of that street. People using technologies in ways that weren't quite what they were designed for.

From Jay Bushman of the Loose-Fish Project telling stories via Twitter and Wikis to Dan Kaminsky breaking languages with language, from hi-rez cameras revealing the secret lives of automobile dashboards to genetic algorithms preparing to take over the world, BarCampers are finding new uses for lots of things.

Not to mention things like FlickrWall. Take a spare cell phone, combine with a prepaid sms card, a laptop, and a projector. Project the phone number on the wall and allow barcampers to text message Flickr tags to the system that then retrieves and projects images with those tags. Watch as people quickly try to wash out someone's "goatse" tag with "puppies" or "unicorns". It's a lot more social than you'd think, with a fun ebb and flow.

This was my second BarCamp, and both times I've come out refreshed and inspired. Making new connections between various technologies and thinking up new possibilites. Sign me up for the next one, and I might even head down to San Diego for their BarCamp in May!