Picking session topics at SocialDevCamp East

The DC area is exploding with meetups and unconferences. First it was BarCamp DC in August, then PodCampDC at the end of April, and just this past weekend was SocialDevCamp East which took place in Baltimore. The latest unconference had an emphasis on the future of the web and many of the sessions were theory-heavy about topics that are the very bleeding edge of the next-generation Internet.

Mike Subelsky talked about Amazon’s EC2 web service.

The first session I went to was about Amazon’s web services specifically the EC2 service. The discussion, which was led by Mike Subelsky, revealed the possibilities for new products and services thanks to Amazon taking a lot of the cost and hassle of running server hardware out of the equation with their on-demand virtual server solution. System administration is foreign to me but I could see the benefit of Amazon’s web services.

Dr. Harry Chen discusses the Semantic web.

The Social Media and Semantic Web panel was a real thinker. This was the first time really diving into the nitty-gritty of the Semantic web, which will make the future Internet smarter and easier to manage with data being in a well structured, meaningful format. Dr. Harry Chen led the discussion (see his slides) with some valuable contributions from the crowd about where this web trend was heading. This gave me ideas about how U.S.News & World Report could add Semantic data to it’s upcoming data projects.

Bear, from Seesmic, adding to the Semantic web discussion.

Lunch was provided at SocialDevCamp East and consisted of a make-your-own sandwich buffet. It was probably one of the best spreads at any unconference I’ve been to. During lunch I chatted with Patti, the founder of a Baltimore area start-up called 600block.com. The site aims to help you and your friends find interesting local things, starting with Baltimore and eventually branching out to other areas. I also met Bear who is an infrastructure developer at Seesmic. He mentioned Seesmic is embracing the Semantic web by building FOAF and SPARQL into their API’s. They hope to make everything they can as open as possible which is really encouraging for the future of web video communication. He also gave me a Seesmic t-shirt. Nice!

Shashi knows the benefit of social media to companies.

After lunch I went to see what Shashi Bellamkonda from Network Solutions had to say about Selling the Value of Social Web to Management. Shashi is a very web social guy who I first met at PodCampDC. He cited how lots of companies are opening up direct communications with customers like Comcast with their ComcastCares twitter account. His main point was blogs/Facebook/Twitter are not another marketing avenue for companies to fill, but rather a way to expose the personality behind the company.

The final session was an intimate discussion about the popular JavaScript libraries that are out there. In attendance was Amy Hoy who is engaged to Thomas Fuchs the creator of script.aculo.us. Clearly she had a bias to Prototype but everyone else seemed to be into jQuery.

I had to duck out after the actual conference part was over so I missed the after party. I met a lot of interesting people who share the same passion for technology as me. Each time I go to one of these unconferences I come out with a bunch of ideas and new perspectives. I can’t wait until the next one which will probably be BarCampDC 2 sometime in the summer. And if you missed this one don’t fret as their are plans for another SocialDevCamp East in the fall.

Other SocialDevCamp East Recaps:

• Dave Troy
• Keith Casey
• Shashi Bellamkonda
• Mike Subelsky
• East Cost Blogging
• Flickr Photos

The first ever DC area BarCamp took place on Saturday, August 11th. A throng of area tech enthusiasts made their way to Fleishman-Hillard Inc. headquarters to partake in an unconference run entirely by it’s participants. There were so many interested attendees that many had to be turned away at the door. Wow! I guess the DC tech community has been secretly yearning for a BarCamp to pop up in the area. One of the attendees brought his son who has to be the youngest BarCamper ever.

The session sign up process was intense as everyone shimmied around the largest conference room in the building trying to cast their vote for the topics that were of the most interest to them. The room for my presentation on Firebug was even packed which made me feel good to have people interested in what I had to say. Though I prepared slides in advance, I didn’t use them. Instead I just walked through the various features of the free Firefox extension and the group had an open discussion about tricks to using the tool. Many developers never realized all of the CSS powers Firebug has and vice versa for CSS designers about script debugging capabilities. Many people later gave me praise for my session. I’m glad people could actually walk away from the conference with something they could use.

My favorite session that I attended was The Facebook Platform given by Nick O’Neill. Here, Nick ran down all the numbers of Facebook application popularity and came to the conclusion that Facebook apps are the next big thing. It was crazy hearing about some of the more popular apps having 1 million+ users. He runs a blog called AllFacebook.com discussing anything and everything related to Facebook and Facebook applications.

The rest of the sessions were documented fairly thoroughly on the BarCamp.org wiki as well as on Flickr. One thing I noticed was 95% of the attendees had Mac laptops and Canon digital cameras. This was also the largest gathering of iPhones outside of an Apple store and for the first time I got to play with one. On an unrelated note: it turns out my fingers are too big to type on the little tiny keyboard. I’m glad I skipped out on the whole iPhone craze.

After the conference everyone headed over to Cafe Asia for the BaCamp after party. I sat with Jared Goralnick from SetConsulting.com, Spencer Holleman, and Charlie Park. We discussed everything from podcasting to holding bunnies for ransom. It was good to meet some other tech related friends in the area.

I had a blast at BarCamp DC and can’t wait until they hold another one (I think I heard the next one would be in January), hopefully in a bigger space. I already know what my next topic will be. Another cool feature would be a group-wide chat channel so other BarCamp DC attendees could find others at the conference with the same specific interests. Hey, some of us are a little bashful in face-to-face settings. A big thanks goes out to the organizers for putting the event together.

• Justin Thorp
• Jason Garber
• M. Jackson Wilkinson
• Rodney Degracia
• Martin Ringlein
• Peter Corbett
• Nick O’Neill
• Justin Stockton

barcampwashingtondc

What is BarCamp?
BarCamp DC is an ad-hoc unconference and is part of the larger BarCamp movement. While there are topics suggested for discussion, there is no set agenda until everyone gathers. Attendees are required to participate to some degree: either by giving a presentation, demo, etc. or by facilitating a group discussion. Topics are flexible, as well.

When is BarCamp?
The first DC area BarCamp will be on Saturday, August 11th, starting at 9:30am and ending whenever people get sick of being there. There is an opening party on Friday, August 10th, at 8pm.

Where is BarCamp?
Fleishman Hillard Inc.
1615 L St NW, 20036
Recommended Metro Stops: Farragut North (red), Farragut West (blue/orange), McPherson Square (blue/orange)
Buses: S1, S2, S4, Circulator, 80, D1, D3, D5, D6, L2, 38B, N2, N4, N6, 42, 52, 53, 54, 30, 32, 34, 35, 36

What can I learn at Barcamp?
You can learn about the following from your peers:

• WCAG 2.0 Will Make Your Life Easier by JustinThorp
• Microformats as APIs by JasonGarber
• Open Rails Session by Bill Kocik
• The Live-Coding Intro to Rails by KevinLawver
• Rails Scaling and Performance by KevinLawver
• Community Building in Drupal by Michael Haggerty
• CRM Systems Integration in Drupal by Michael Haggerty
• Blog design by Jesse Thomas
• Ethics and Word of Mouth Marketing in the 2.0 World by Holly Samee
• Irregular intervals: grid systems fifty years on by David Ramos
• Open Democracy by Matt Bradley, Jeremy Carbaugh (Sunlight Foundation)
• Using Firebug: Web Development Inside the Browser by Russell Heimlich
• Trace-Driven Design: How an Architecture Practice Makes Web Application Design Better by John Athayde
• Widget distribution and analytics by Will Meyer
• Ruby: A Crash Course (”Hello World” to Metaprogramming) by Nikolas Coukouma
• Fantastic Web Typography For Everyone by Nathan Herald
• DOM Scripting (how can I be amazing, fast?) with the new Dojo by Matt Bowen
• Accessible Forms by John F Croston III
• User Experience Design: a discussion on why the hell designers do what they do by Samantha Warren
• Alternative Web App Structures by Brock Wilcox
• Failing the Joel Test by Matt Lester
• Developing on the Facebook Platform by Zvi Band
• Let’s design a dream set-top box for Miro by Ross Karchner
• Stump the Chump: CSS Edition (bring real-world CSS problems / screenshots of troublesome layouts / etc. and we’ll solve them {or die trying}) by Charlie Park
• Web Application Security (and why it matters to YOU!) by Doug Wilson and Mark Bristow

That’s right, you can look forward to a presentation by yours truly about Firebug.

Is there more information?

• BarCamp DC Wiki Page (Where everything gets organized)
• Official BarCamp DC Site
• Upcoming.org Event Info
• BarCamp DC Flickr Group
• BarCamp DC Twitter Account

Now for the rest of this week I need to prepare for my little presentation. I will be blogging from the event but if you happen to be there feel free to drop by and say hi.

barcampwashingtondc