I didn’t think Calgary was ready for this, but apparently I was wrong. Thanks to an email from Sami, I see that the first ever BarCamp Calgary is scheduled to take place on May 26, 2007, at the University of Calgary main campus. This is a type of event I’ve REALLY wanted to have here in Calgary, and it’s great to see there are a whole bunch of people interested in making it happen. Looking at the list of Campers on the event page, I only recognize a couple of the names. Maybe the Calgary blogosphere is more robust than Ive been guessing?
I’m unsure if I’ll be able to attend (between family work schedules involving Saturdays, and Evan’s soccer games) but I’ll try to at least drop in to see what’s going on.
Very cool stuff.
There’s also a DemoCamp planned as well – TONIGHT, no less. I’m less sure about how cool/uncool that event might be – sounds like a Vendor Fair mixed with The Gong Show… I won’t be able to check this one out, but hopefully someone blogs it.
It’s great to see this kind of unconference stuff starting to happen in Cowtown. Maybe there’s hope for this burg yet…
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Cool. I hadn’t heard of BarCamp/DemoCamp before. I don’t think I’ll make it to DemoCamp on such short notice, but might try BarCamp next month.
Kemton Wong has been kind enough to convert the presentations and put them up on Google Video:
http://kempton.ideasRevolution.com/2007/04/26/democampcalgary1-report/
Sorry that’s Kemton Lam, not Wong.
Sami
D’Arcy,
We had BarCamp here in Saskatoon last fall. I’m surprised that it’s folks in Calgary so long.
Have a blast and, of course, blog all about it.
@Heather: Calgary’s got a pretty strong blue-suit influence. The conferences I’ve been to here have been VERY strongly bent towards enterprise-class services and applications, which are diametrically opposed to the whole unconference idea. That, and everything in this city revolves around the Boom Economy, and raking in dollars. I approached some high-ranking folks on campus about possibly hosting Northern Voice in Calgary, and their response was entirely framed around revenue generation…
@King: I might see you there, at least for a part of it. You know… if you haven’t seen enough of me already…