There are some nice surprises with Startup Camp 5. As always, it is free to attend. You just need to preregister. But there will be two free parties on both evenings of Startup Camp. There is nothing like a bite and a beer to help you process all of the great info that you get during the day at Startup Camp.

The other surprise is that Startup Camp is strattles a weekend day and a weekday. The first day of camp is on Sunday, and the second and last is on Monday. I am not sure why these days were chosen, but I can guess. Having camp on a weekend will allow many ultra busy entrepreneurs attend as well as people who are still doing the regular 9-5 type job but are thinking about creating a startup. The other reason is that immediately after Startup Camp is Sun’s Java One Conference in the same location. In fact, the last of the free parties that I mentioned above is the Sun’s welcome party for the Java conference. It is nice to have a well-heeled sponsor like Sun assisting with Startup Camp.

See you at Camp.

Technorati tags: Startup Camp, Java One, weekend, free party

Sunday marks the start of Startup Camp 5 in SF. I have been to Camps 1 and 2, and both were great ways to meet other business people and to get questions, both business and technical, answered by people who had already done the same things.

It is an unconference, which I personally adore. For those not in the know, an unconference is structured by the participants themselves. For example, if you want to get or give information about any topic, such as hiring employees, creating social networks, mobile advertising, creative ways to advertise your websites, etc., just add it to one of the empty sessions yourself. If people are interested, they will show and contribute. You can ask questions at any time since it is not really structured, which is so much nicer than saving them up for the end of a talk when they are not as relevant and timely.

The rule of the day is “Vote with your feet”, meaning that you are free to move from session to session as often as you want. The participant sets up the conference topics and attends the ones that interests him. Basically, an unconference is a loose framework that is fleshed out by the participants themselves. It also turns conferences on their heads. Many people have said that the best parts of traditional conferences are the informal parts such as the coffee breaks. These breaks allow people to network, ask questions and put business deals together. So an unconference can be thought of as a really long coffee break.

As with most things today, the unconference is what you make of it. But then so is life itself.

Technorati tags: Startup Camp, unconference, vote with your feet