I gave a short tour of Mirye Runtime Revolution at BarCamp Seattle 2008 on Sunday, under the title Programming for Non-Programmers. The previous day - Saturday - there was a presentation on various Rich Internet Application builders. Since every attendee could pick up a free copy of Revolution Media Edition, I covered mostly the features of Runtime Revolution that I wish I had known more about when I first touched it. (more…)
BarCamp Seattle 2008 started around 11:30 AM with 30 minute sessions. I sat in on an excellent “gaming the organization” session discussing how to integrate fun, game oriented elements into the work place as a means to motivate or reward employees. You can follow this on the wiki or on Twitter.
Barcamp is referred to as an unconference - put on by the tech community for the tech community - where you can suggest any relevant topic, reserve a space, then offer up a topic of discussion. I attended BarCamp Portland (Saturday and Sunday) after hearing about it from Harvey Matthews, president of Software Association of Oregon.
What fascinated me about BarCamp is that its an ongoing, social learning conversation. While someone may present an idea or a budding technology, the expectation is that its a participatory event - groups are small enough that its possible to do just that. This wasn’t just a geekfest for the twenty something set; there was an even mix of ages and experience. I truly felt I left the unconference carrying with me more useful new relationships and technology information than I had from the last few conventions I have attended.
There were quite a few who were happy to learn about Valentina and that we even offer a free version of Valentina Server on Linux to tinker with or utilize in academic settings. I didn’t go to this event with sales in mind; it wasn’t that type of event anyway. Yet in the course of the sessions, some products (of the free and open source variety and others of the proprietary type) naturally suggested themselves as solutions or stepping stones towards achieving some goal.