As we hear the question “what is a Barcamp?” pretty often, here’s a quick explanation:

Wikipedia says: BarCamp is an international network of user generated conferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants.

Barcamp Logos

Barcamp Logos

Tantek Çelik provided the rules (source barcamp.org) based on the

  • 1st Rule: You do talk about BarCamp.
  • 2nd Rule: You do blog about BarCamp.
  • 3rd Rule: If you want to present, you must write your topic and name in a presentation slot.
  • 4th Rule: Only three word intros.
  • 5th Rule: As many presentations at a time as facilities allow for.
  • 6th Rule: No pre-scheduled presentations, no tourists.
  • 7th Rule: Presentations will go on as long as they have to or until they run into another presentation slot.
  • 8th Rule: If this is your first time at BarCamp, you HAVE to present. (Ok, you don’t really HAVE to, but try to find someone to present with, or at least ask questions and be an interactive participant.)

    • For me that’s the most important part: be an interactive participant! as in interaction, dialog, involvement, question and answer, transfer. A Barcamp is what you make it! If people don’t interact we will end up sitting in a room quietly. If everybody is an proactive participant though we will spend a fun time, sharing our knowlede, learning together, discussing, meeting new friend, having new ideas, …

    Sessionplan at UXCamp Berlin

    Sessionplan at UXCamp Berlin

    What are the topics?

    Whatever the participants are interested in. Traditionally geeky stuff, but if people keep asking you about your famous chicken pie recipe why not give a session about that. Or the other way around: You are very interested in a certain topic let’s say “optimizing Propel queries” just suggest a session about that, most likely somebody might stand up and say “Hey I know that stuff pretty well, I can give a session where you can ask questions, if enough people are interested, otherwise just chat with me lateron”. There are Barcamps with special topics UXCamp for example. UX stands for User Experience and it’s basically a Barcamp for User Experience, but also here it would be no problem to have a session about chicken pie, if you find your audience.

    Where can I suggest my session? What will the schedule be?

    A Barcamp day starts with the suggestion of the sessions. So everybody describes the kind of session the can do in about 30 seconds than the people who are interested just raise their hands. This way you know how many people might attend and which room to choose, if there are rooms with different sizes and equipment. Then the session gets pinned on the board for a certain time slot. After the planning – voila – there is a schedule and the sessions start.

    Any more questions? Feel free to ask at any time. I’ll just update this post with what you’d like to know in addition. This way this post might become a nice FAQ about Barcamps. Thanks for being a interactive participant!

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