You have a good point about sponsors. Next time I will strive for clearer communication with all sponsors, direct and indirect. I think it is possible to ensure everyone is treated well and satisfied, but it is definitely tricky when the event is organized by a loose-knit team of part-time volunteers.

However I would point out that the sponsors who got more involved in organizing the conference definitely got their money’s worth. The best example was of course Monster, whose staff took the opportunity to earn major cred among a bunch of great local techies by providing space, support, and a number of interesting topical sessions. Could we have done more to court sponsors? Sure. But why? A handful of generous folks (like you) just want to help the community and can easily spend $250 without wanting any more special treatment than a printed sign. One VC firm chips in $1000 in return for a sleeve logo on some shirts. We have the space, the food, and the shirts. What are we going to with the extra money… upgrade to windbreakers? sushi? Or is there some way I can be incented to court sponsors by earning some of their sponsorship money for myself? If it’s possible to do that without undermining the credibility of BarCamp for its techies, I’d love to know how.

Regarding the size and scope of the event, it was partially a deliberate decision to limit the size and scope of the event, and partially another artifact of the near-lack of a planning process. The advertising options open to use included things like asking Monster’s PR department to do a press release. We decided that would attract a disproportionate amount of attention from non-hackers, so we asked Monster PR to do the release after the event instead. Instead, we put up flyers in universities and offices, emailed announcements to local tech user groups, and sent lots of specific announcements to known hackers and bloggers. We had limited time and resources in planning the event, and were unsure about our ability to handle a much larger event. Now that we have a core participant group that definitely works, we’ll probably grow in future iterations. How would you suggest getting the word out next time? Would you like to help with that aspect of planning?

thanks,
shimon.

I attended BarCamp mostly to meet other people — not to “network” but to connect on a personal level. Most of the sessions were good but the times between the sessions were the most valuable to me.

Next time think of some way to “thank our sponsors” so the sponsors can get their message across and you can control how, where and when that is done.

Bar Camp was a good event, but it would have been a much better one with a bigger and more diverse group. Lack of advertising kept it small, I’m not clear on whether or not this was deliberate but it was very limiting. Little things like putting sponsor logos on the flyers would have gotten you more publicity (the sponsors would have done it for you) and helped avoid sponsor interruptions during the event. If sponsors insist on speaking at the big gatherings schedule them in and publish the schedule. That gives you an excuse to vet the speeches for length and appropriateness (under the guise of helping the speakers reach the audience) and also of course allows anyone who dislikes that stuff to easily avoid it.

You have a good point. I did not have a stopwatch, and these speakers should clearly have been given a better explanation of BarCamp before they stepped up to the mic. But I disagree that my asking Mr. Salemi to wrap up was motivated by his age, lifestyle quota (?), or his not being a hacker. It was motivated because these speakers were using a loud microphone system at the beginning of lunchtime. Everyone had just sat down to eat, and no session blocks were scheduled at that time, so there weren’t other places to go. If they had just set up at a table to talk with people that would not have been so disruptive. But I felt the speeches *were* materially disruptive to the important work of the conference — meaningful communication between hackers — and that’s why I did what I did.

Still, I’m not glad about the way I did it. It would have been wiser to explicitly request that they speak toward the end of lunch, so interested people could stay and listen while others perhaps made their way to other sessions. The problem was that the timing and presentation mechanism guaranteed a captive audience, and I thought that simply rubbed BarCamp the wrong way.

Regarding their contribution, Wellesley Management had no out-of-pocket expenses. They did contribute the use of the amphitheater, concord, and sudbury conference rooms. But they also changed their requirements several times in the last couple of weeks before BarCamp, insisting on a lunchtime speech slot and a staff of 3 full-time security guards, which added considerably to Monster’s expenses as the venue sponsor.

Are we hoping to be invited back? Sure, but I don’t think it’s worth compromising the no-captive-audience rule. Once the Wellesley folks got a better explanation of BarCamp, they offered a session and we made peace. I think they are better served by that form of participation than a captive speech. I do wish I had been gentler, and the point of my blog post was to turn the experience into a lesson that might avert future flare-ups.