<blows dust and cobwebs away>

Is this thing on?

So, at the weekend I went to BarCamp London 6. If you’re not familiar with the concept if a barcamp, it’s a type of unconference.

Perhaps more helpfully, Wikipedia sayeth:

BarCamp is an international network of user generated conferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants. The first BarCamps focused on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies, social protocols, and open data formats. The format has also been used for a variety of other topics, including public transit, health care, and political organizing.

The key element of an unconference is that the agenda is not set beforehand, unlike, well, a conference. Participants bagsy slots on the timetable at the beginning and most run a session as well as attending others.

One of the highlights – amongst many good sessions – was the first session I went to on Sunday morning. Organised by lastminute.com’s Richard Lewis Jones, it comprised two rounds of Radio 4 panel game Just a Minute. This being a weekend packed with clever geeks, we not only had the theme tune to introduce the games, but hi-tech buzzers in the form of Wii remotes, magicked up by Tom Scott. Thanks to Proactive Paul, videos of the two games are on YouTube. I was on the second panel and you can watch the whole thing right here.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Anyhoo, it was a great weekend. Huge props* to Emma Persky and her team for organising and to everyone who ran sessions.

* Don’t worry, I don’t say this in real life