Thanks everyone for making DrupalcampWisconsin a reality!
I was only able to attend for a couple of hours, but really enjoyed what I got to absorb.
The one thing that I noticed that I wanted to share is that DC-WI didn't have much Barcamp in it. It felt a lot more seminar-y. I'd recommend for future events (for all Camps) always having at least 3 camps. Having just the 2 gave the event a sort of Us-Them or Two-Party-System kind of feel. A third would add more of an element of surprise. I also like very much how at barcamps you always feel like you're missing something since there is so much going on - This makes people want more because they always feel like they missed something.
Overall it was great but I think it was a little heavy on the structure. A third track would have helped. I would have enjoyed doing a "okay, lets make a site" session (or three), which would have probably helped a lot of people (newbs at least) by prompting them to ask questions related to their own creative sitebuilding thoughts instead of being topic-centric. (yes yes, i know, then why didnt I do it. I was on a limited schedule)
Looking forward to BarCampMadison,
-Jonathan
Comments
I agree that there was a
I agree that there was a need for an additional track. The limited nature of the space kind of made splitting into 2 a nesessity, although thrird sessions would have spilled into the common area of the building with little or no issue.
That being said, there wasn't enough interest in running sessions to warrant a second track after dinner.
Perhaps the "Barcamp" thing should have been explained a little more strongly at the get go.
Drupal Camp
I thought they said this wasn't going to be traditional BarCamp model?
I thought it was fine, The only thing I think that after dinner, I thought we were going to have a specific help and answer session. I would have like to see every say what they want and pair up or go off in groups to work on individuals projects.
I was a bit confused about the HTML lesson. I would have preferred to duck out and actually collaborate.
All in all I am satisfied.
~George
After dinner?
I took off after pizza was served. What did everyone do at that point?
BarCampy
Well, we did the best we could, and I think it turned out ok. We knew it would not be exactly like a BarCamp in a number of ways, but I think Jonathan's criticism is the only one I heard of the event. I definitely felt like I missed way too much. At a typical BarCamp, I am missing tons of stuff, but most of it doesn't interest me, but at DrupalCamp I missed 50% of what was going on, and of that 50% almost all of it would have gotten my interest. If we had 3 tracks, I would have missed 66% of potentially interesting material.
Hey, live and learn, right? We'll try to do better next time, and if you feel like something isn't happening the right way at a *Camp event, step up and say so. :)
Conferencierrr
My comment was definitely not intended as a dig on the event - I enjoyed it and I think it was a big success. It wouldn't be very kaizen of me not to offer honest feedback to improve future events.
The event was very structured and there were some fairly official SME's there which was great. Events like these would be more Camp and less Conf with more tracks - and IMHO having more, smaller groups mean questions and offshoot discussions will be more forthcoming.
Specifically with Drupal (and a lot of OO/grassroots projects in general), I think a lot of people who are somewhat new to it have almost the same questions. Letting them lead the discssuion by playing off of each others questions would create a more interactive learning experience and I think it would provide a deeper understanding of the topics for people. I would have enjoyed presenting on a topic I knew nothing about and basically asked questions of the experts in the group to get some answers.
I think that framing things from the beginners perspective as opposed to the model's perspective often makes it easier to digest information.
And yes, I should participate more :) looking forward to doing so.