BarCampLA An UN-conference

If you’ve never heard about (let alone attended) a BarCamp, the title of this post looks like gibberish or computer code to you.

BarCamps are, as the Wikipedia link says, “user generated conferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants.” Some call these “un-conferences,” and they are simply put: self-organizing events.

Show up at the designated venue in the morning. You’ll find an empty bulletin board with a grid for each hour of the day, and anyone who wants to make a presentation (or just facilitate a working conversation) just posts a title on the board. Away you go.

My first exposure was only a few months ago when I noticed the phrase in some Twitter traffic and read some blogs about a BarCamp event that took place in Washington DC about transparency in government called, cryptically, TransparencyCamp.

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Checking out the session board for BarCampLA7 [ photo credit: Al Pavangkana, http://www.flickr.com/photos/drtran

I wasn’t able to make the scene at that event in DC, but followed the event online via Twitter streams and the BarCamp wiki, which included some of the material that was presented, which was so compelling that I vowed to track this BarCamp meme and take part when possible.

Enter BarCampLA.

As I write this, day two of BarCampLA-7 is taking place. To my disappointment, I can’t be there today, but here are some notes from my first BarCamp…

By the way, these are notes exactly as typed into Evernote (my favorite notetaking tool), plus some bits from the Twitter stream that I hope will give some flavor of the event.

barcampla7_shirt_front

factorhub.com, Pricing Your Services

[ Here's a link to the slide deck of this powerpoint preso. ]

a sustainable business is required.
plan freelancing as if it’s a longterm business.
a business methodology isn’t a product… (builds authority, however).
create a transparent pricing model — including a higher price for “avoid” tasks (meetings)
cost-plus model: (rent, computers, all costs) + profit = your price (poor approach)
value pricing model (price to match the value of your service to client) (okay, but cumbersome)
factor pricing (factors related to working with a particular client, my current guru cred, do i have to drive much to work for you, etc.)
social/political agenda pricing: (discount to good-guy companies, industries, etc.)
daily pricing
using pricing to help clients set priorities — charge more for one option of time-conflicting tasks. price helps client decide on priorities.

unclasses.com, The Joy of Teaching, Everyone’s a Teacher

One of my favorite ideas of the event. We all have things we know well or have a passion about… we are all teachers in one way or another; so why not offer a class about whatever you want to share? Do yourself a favor — visit this website, find or offer a class! Casual learning is a rich resource.

Notes:

Casual learning… unmet market need is people sharing their passion.
We were asked to come up with Classes we could teach:

become a coffee geek… how to get a god-shot from your espresso machine
learn the russian alphabet and basic phrases in 45 minutes
never make a powerpoint presentation again (beyond powerpoint)
have you ever been thirsty? water issues of southern california,what’s your water-footprint (lifecycle view of water)

Interesting comments from audience about LIFESTREAMING — APPS, WIDGETS, ETC. lifestreamblog.com
see also upcoming session on Awe.sm (huh? what’s that?)
One unclass title: “It’s part BarCamp and part reverse mentoring where young geeks teach the CEOs and CFOs all the latest business technology. The idea is to foster learning, open-source style, in the local community. Sessions will be needs-based and might fall into categories such as: == what the heck is Twitter?”

The audience made up some classes on the spot and stood up and pitched their class to the room:

Part TWO of this post is coming soon… (including: Your Tweets Suck and Microblogging and Identity Performance… don’t miss it!)

But before we go, check this out: I shot these photos throughout the day:

A Flickr stream of

“The T-Shirts of BarCampLA.”