First day of Startup Camp went well, but it was a bit uneven. As always, it is free and is a great way to network and learn about new technologies. But this time around, they added some traditional panel discussions that did not really inspire me. Worse is that it seems to have really made people more introverted than they should have been at an “unconference.” The unconference portion started at 4pm, but it seemed to me that most people were in a passive frame of mind for the first session. Many people sat passively, asking few questions, listening to mostly one speaker and not drifting from session to session. They seemed to get more in the swing of the unconference in the second session.

Startup Camp continues tomorrow. I am looking forward to it. If you are going, I will see you there.

Technorati tags: Startup Camp 5, unconference 

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