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If you came to BathCamp, you may have noticed that there was an actual bath sat on the stage (sourced and carried to the event at great expense). In the evening it was full of beer. You probably noticed that too, judging by how much of it was drunk. Nestled amongst the beer however was a large family of yellow rubber ducks.
One thing we forgot to mention much at the event was our grand plan for a duck competition. The rules are pretty freeform. Take pics of the ducks in cool locations around UK and further afield (extra points for other Barcamps and cool web events), tag the pics as bathcamp on Flickr and add them to our Flickr pool, and then sometime around March (just before SXSW) a decision will be made on the most deserving duck, and its owner will
win an iPod touch.
Here’s a nice example, of one of the ducks riding one of those mysterious pigs that seem to be dotted around Bath:
If you didn’t pick up a duck at the event, let us know and we’ll try to get one to you somehow!
Happy ducking!
So, er, Bathcamp happened hey. I’m exhausted from it, as I’m sure many others are, but it was definitely worth it for all the great people, talks, sessions and so on.
I thought I’d get in a quick blog post to say a big well done to Mike Ellis (the baldy bloke who stood on the table and introduced the event). More than anyone, Mike has spent months running around, sorting stuff out, and having a few sleepless nights. In the end, none of the potential crises materialised, and it all went pretty swimmingly, so thanks Mike, from all of us! And thanks to to everyone else who came, who helped out, and who contributed to paying for stuff.
We’ll be looking through the photos, videos & blog posts from and about the event over the next few days, so if you do any of that stuff please tag it so it’s findable (as ‘bathcamp’, or maybe ‘bathcamp08′ or ‘bathcamp2008′ or some combination thereof). We’ll link through to some of the best content here on the blog.
There was some talk at the end of doing re-running the event next year as BathCamp 2009. We’re not even going to start to think about it for a couple of months, and maybe the format for next year would be a different kind of event? (a mashup of the BarCamp format at the Open Space format was discussed in one session). Keep this blog in your feed reader anyway, as we’ll post news of what happens here.
Finally, I thought I’d compile a quick list of everyone I could find on Twitter who went to the event. Might be useful for anyone wanting to make contact with someone they met.
frankieroberto (me), Mike Ellis, Drew Jones, Tim Beadle, Jennybee, Suzicatherine, Sam Downie, slum_goddess, jahcub, Darren Beale, Peter Gradwell, Mark Ng, Dale Lane, iammikek, Ian Ibbotson, Ruth Harper, Stephen Pope, Felix Cohen, Jag Gill, Matt Jukes, Jack Martin Leith, Mia Ridge, Chris English, Richard Harrison, Tom Goskar, Michael Edwards, Lisa Price, Mike Nolan, Rick Hurst, Alex Francis, James Boardwell ,gicela, Sam Machin, Brian Kelly, bookmeister, Laura Dee, Edward McCaughan, Keir Whittaker, Alistair MacDonald…
[man, that took longer than I anticipated. If you're not on the list and should be, send me a direct message on twitter]
When we opened the registrations for Bathcamp, we needed a logo, and quick. Luckily there’s a standard Barcamp logo, which is available as a vector file, so I knocked up a version in a couple of fetching shades of blue:
All well and good, but fast forward a few weeks, and we started to feel that it wouldn’t exactly stand out in the BarCamp logo gallery. So, in a neat bit of team work, Stephen Pope, Mike Ellis and me, collaborated on this new logo, which oh-so-wittily incorporates an old-fashioned bath:
In the spirit of the event, you can also download this logo as an SVG vector file, for creative re-use! (Feel free to paint it on your laptop or tattoo it on your forehead for the event).
Having designed the logo, we also started thinking about taking the bath joke a bit further. With that in mind, we’re going to bring an actual bath to the event. We’re not sure exactly what we’re going to fill it with yet – although we’re asking attendees for their ideas – but we’re thinking that a bathload of beer would be fun.
BathCamp is now just over two months away (registrations are open). If you can’t wait that long though, you may be interested in other BarCamps coming up over the summer, which range in topic and in location. Attending other BarCamps is a great way to get a feel for the format, and to give you some ideas for things you might like to talk about at BathCamp.
On Saturday 5th July there’s a BarCampBank in London, focusing on innovation in the financial services sector. Good to see that the format has no bounds! (I love the piggy bank in the logo too.)
On Saturday 1st August it’s BarCamp2, the BarCamp in Cambridge. It’s hosted at the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus and the topic is the ‘interface between science and technology’ – should be interesting that.
On Saturday 6th September (a week before BathCamp), it’s the 3rd annual BarCamp Brighton, which is returning to the University of Sussex. Also on this date is PhotoCampLeeds, the UK’s ‘first photographic-focussed BarCamp’ – perfect for Flickr lovers.
Plus of course there are BarCamps around the world, if you can afford the flights (and the environmental guilt). See BarCamp.org for the full list.
Registration for BathCamp, taking place on the 13th-14th September, is now open!
To register, visit bathcamp08.eventbrite.com.
We have space for around 100 attendees for the event, which is taking place at the Invention Studios in Bath. There’s a booking fee of just £5, which includes a free T-shirt (pick your size), food, some beer, and a few other freebies (or ’schwag’, as Mike likes to say).
Once you’ve booked, you could add yourself to the Upcoming event page, the Facebook event page or the BarCamp wiki page – whichever takes your fancy.
So, what’s the second thing you do when organising a geek event (after booking the venue)? Setting up a group on every conceivable social networking site of course.
There’s already been a BathCamp Flickr group set up, although you can also simply tag relevant photos with bathcamp08. Now there’s a BathCamp last.fm group too.
What’s the point of a last.fm group? Well, partly just for fun, and partly to give us an idea of the aggregated musical tastes of the people coming to BathCamp. We may even play the group radio at the event. So, if you’re a last.fm user, join up.
Once there’s more than 10 members, there should be a group chart showing up below:
BathCamp is a BarCamp style event that we’re organising, to take place in Bath (UK) later in the summer. A BarCamp is a type of participatory conference (or unconference, if you prefer), where everyone is encouraged to give short presentations, demos, workshops and so on, in a kind of ad-hoc, not very pre-planned kind of fashion. There’s also an overnight element, where attendees can literally camp out and hang out, either discussing stuff or making stuff (or both).
BathCamp was conceived of during the Museums and the Web 2008 conference, and is being organised by a bunch of people with associations with UK museums. There will therefore be a loose theme of cultural heritage and openness, but really the conference is open to anyone, from hackers to designers and writers to builders.
The date is yet to be decided, but may well be either the weekend of 23rd/24th or 30th/31st August 2008. We’re also on the lookout for a venue. If you have any ideas, get in touch.
If you’re interested in attending BathCamp, you can add yourself to our mailing list, or pop your name onto the BathCamp wiki page. Subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed to find out more information when we’ve got it.
BathCamp is being organised by Mike Ellis, Mia Ridge and me, Frankie Roberto, and we’ll no doubt be writing about it on our respective blogs too.
