Disclaimer: <start>I have lots of respect for individuals who are taking whole lotta pain to organize the Bangalore barcamp. The views expressed here are based on my experiences over the past few barcamps and in no way, demeans the great value Barcamp has. </over>
Barcamp is like a kickass web2.0 startup – simple, fresh idea, breaks all existing norms, has great stickiness and most important, the community loves it !
But that was then.
The product, of course has evolved (big time!) and gained great amount of traction (and users). And that has resulted in new ‘feature requests/dimensions’ to the product;
Which essentially means that like any mildly successful startup, Barcamp is also going through growing pains!
And somehow I have a feeling that organizers are saying “yes” to every new requests (like they did that with BCB4 when every participant started creating his own collective at runtime!).
Candidly speaking, simplicity is being traded for “let’s have this feature (i.e. collective/topic) too!”; and the result?
Confusion (see this great featuritis curve- where do you think the different versions of BCBs can be mapped to?)
The earlier versions of BCBs were simple and very intuitive – it was really easy to register as a participant, as a speaker, track events and in general, have a confidence that “you know what you are doing at BCB“.
But, BCB4 and onwards seems to have taken a different track at all – reliance is more on technology rather than simplicity. For e.g. In BCB4, IRC channels became the de-facto channel of communication (to track what’s happening in different tracks) and pen/paper/white boards took a back seat.
I am sensing a similar story with BCB5. Compare the BCB5 pages with BCB3 and you will know the contrasting difference – themes are not too clear, I wasn’t able to find (in 60 seconds) where should I register as a speaker, and details about collectives.
I somehow see the ‘unconference‘ part of Barcamp lost in all these new avatars – too many wikis, too many collectives (which in my opinion can be clubbed in max. 4 categories) and in general, a sense of being overwhelmed by the vast number of topics!
I am not complaining – this is a good problem to have! But at the same time, one needs to take strong decisions and I believe, time has come for Barcamp organizers to decide what should be the focus/future of Barcamp.
After having attended the SFO barcamp, I strongly believe that even unconferences needs to be managed (right from collection of topics, to keeping the entire event simple) and frankly speaking, you just can’t set the horse free and expect the dust to settle down easily!
Here are a few suggestions to maintain the simplicity of BCBs:
- Let Barcamp focus on 4 areas – Internet/Mobile/Technology and Miscellaneous (i.e. generic stuff which is valid across all of these topics – say, Creative Commons, Entrepreneurship etc).
- For other topics, allow Barcamp to be the enabler, the grand daddy of all camps instead of attempting to be a one-in-all stuff! – so if you are a doctor, please come to BCBs and meet like-minded people. Then you guys decide to start your own camp and you use Barcamp as a platform to tell the entire BCB community about your newly formed camp (organizers can have a slot for “new camp announcement”)
- No way, allow people to add to chaos (i.e. create new topics/collectives at the last minute, just because they want to.) – I agree Barcamp is all about democracy (and freedom), but even democracy comes with certain rules and in my opinion, needs to be regulated!
What do you think? Should BCBs focus on few selected themes (+ some misc.) and in the process, spin off new camps like healthcamp/codecamp/osscamp etc? Or do you think this format is sustainable?
In the above curve, where do you think the diff. BCBs version fit in? In my opinion, BCB3 was the happy user peak.
I, of course look forward to BCB5 and as I said earlier, hats off to people behind the event!
tags: barcamp bangalore
I have lost interest in BCBs. Too much of crowd and hardly any interesting topic!
Well, after BCB4, I have started believing that barcamps are used as a platform by a few individuals to generate good PR (for their personal stuff).
Great post and I agree with you on all the points! As far as the curve is concerned, BCB5 is definitely in the “Where the f*** did they put that” area!
Where should one register as a speaker? I spent close to 5 mins and couldn’t figure out. Now you need to start a forum for the same…what crap!
i guess interested/genuine speakers will stay away from this BCB. ITs just tooooooooooooo difficult to find the exact info.
i agree with your suggestions.
it has become too big and deviating from the core idea of generating value!
Ashish,
This is a good post and critique. Barcamp is a self-learning organism. When the number of participants were few, there was a certain camaraderie, a certain “elitism” and that is why some people are losing interest because the elitism is dwindling. With more people coming in and with the overriding principal that we do not keep people out, it is normal that some “scope creep” will happen. What is “scope creep” to you and me (say films) is lifeblood for some other people.
Actually, it will be good to discuss this at BCB5. Many of us are struggling with the problem.
(I came to know about the name deletion from the wiki. With posts like these, you may get run over my friend :0)
Kamal,
You said ” barcamps are used as a platform by a few individuals to generate good PR (for their personal stuff).”
Is your observation about Bangalore Barcamp or Barcamps in general ? Could you give a few examples where you have felt this way ?
Shourya, in BCB4 I saw people like Kiruba using the barcamp platform to generate a good PR for their own personal purpose. for e.g. as an organizer, I do expect certain people to behave in a certain mature way. I remember he started some creative commons collective on the fly and that resulted in every tom/dick/harry creating their own collective.
I personally don’t have a problem with people using any platform for PR, but if one is an organizer, one needs to be mature enough to understand their responsiblity. ANd if kiruba does something weird, why did the other organizers supported him (and instead should have snapped him for being the creator of chaos!).
Peace.
can somebody tell me how do I register as a speaker? Do I have to create a forum for that?
Maybe moving away from TKF will help. I am guessign there is a bit of tiredness and as kamal mentioned, the “first movers of TKF” are using BCBs as a way to promote themselves!
Nice curve on user happiness!! In my opinion, BCB5 is at “where the f did they put that”
Kamal, Kiruba was not an organiser of BCB4. He was a participant just like anyone else. The privileges he had were available to all.
To register as speaker and discuss topics you can reach here http://barcampbangalore.org/forums/viewforum.php?f=1
Please join mailing list at bangalore_barcamp@yahoogroups.com
Kamal, Avinash
Kiruba was NOT an organiser and NONE of the TKF folks were organisers! All of them were participants just as any of us.
All
Need for simplicity is a valid point. As Shourya put it aptly, we are all figuring out the “right” way and haven’t found it yet.
Like any “kickass web 2.0 start-up”, Barcamp’s features are defined by its users. So come over at BCB5 and let’s figure it out how to take the curve back up.
well..the amount of unnecessary attention that they get gives a feeling that they are an organizer (and maybe few folks take advantage of that)
and one of the valid suggestion, as Ashish points out is to have barcamp be a spinoff to other camps.
Anyways, lets meet up and discuss that!
Not too sure what organizers think about that
Kamal, Barcamp is already being a spin-off point for other groups, though not necessarily events. How about a collective at BCB5 to discuss how future Barcamps should be organised?
Nice curve. Where did you get that from?
And a new look as well. IMHO the earlier one was better.
Hey Rajiv,
That’s featuritis curve (link), it’s in the post link as well!
- Moved to new look, since the earlier was too wide for big screens and basically, a UI expert (very credible person) suggested to go for fixed width!
Controversial post
but I would agree to most of that!
Well, a couple of points:
a. I am not too sure of the idea behind collective leads. As I have said earlier, lets have only 4 sections and people list their topics under those sections. In my opinion, collectives should go away (a collective lead sounds very conference stuff and it is a conference style of leading the discussion).
b. Why have forums for people to discuss what they want to listen on collectives? I mean – how unconference is it? That sounds like a college class where a new prof asks students to send their qns, so that he comes prepared with answers.
I don’t think that’s unconference.
If say, I want to present a topic – I just add my name under that section. That’s it (and for that to work, have only 4 or max 5 sections). Those who are interested in that topic will anyway follow the same during BCB.
My thoughts (not direct answers or counterpoints):
a/ Collective facilitator is a point-man much needed from a logistics point of view. He does not possess root priviledge. All campers are equal, including organisers.
b/ Forums are a means to have threaded discussions. Such discussions are archived, and available beyond Barcamp instances. (I know we have not hit diamond with this implementation, but hey life’s an experiment)
what we see out in this discussion, neither the organizers agree upon to few suggestions, nor they justify why thy doing, all organizers who have replied here have tried to justify something which they have committed, which is way poor..when u come here to reply you should at least posses and say, ok we shall take some quality feedbacks, but u guys behave like u are going to have a match only with your own rules, at least with these 19 comments, you should have had a thought of coming up with new plans, just take a digg out and see, everyone are unhappy about Bar-camp……make it a worthwhile, if you try to only come here to reply in order to justify u’r own mistakes, kindly stay away at least..again don’t start commenting, ok u shall thy justify u’r own thoughts and feeling, respect every individual comments, now you would have had some positive feedbacks from the author of this post, why would he say something is wrong in Barcamp, if it wasn’t?… make it success and take feedbacks and opinions on a democratic reason
I strongly believe that a strong management & guidelines can make this unconference to both interesting , fun and most importantly unbiased
my 2 cents
Very interesting.
Thanks Ashish for such valuable feedback.
I agree to your complexity theory. BCB5 is much more complex than BCB3.
And what you say about degree of user satisfaction, thats so true. The simple the better.
The grouping of all talks into 4 generic categories, (as it was in BCB3) is a valid point. And given that quite a few veteran barcampers feel it is better than the “collectives” approach why not experement with that again! I am open to it (Can’t comment on how others think about it).
I’d like to share the genesis of “Collectives”! Back in BCB3 days, we were struggling with making BCB unconferencish with such huge numbers coming in. 1 common feedback in BCB3 was, that classrooms dampen the participation and invite people to listen rather than participate. Another common feedback was “we come and meet/discuss but nothing solid happens”.
Collectives proposed on having focussed discussions by a smaller number of people around an area of interest. Something similar to a BOF. It looked like Nirwana back then. The people who met together in a smaller collective would probably carry on their discussions on a personal level beyond BCBs, thereby leading to something fruitful as well. But now it *does* appear that collectives is not the answer. It addresses quite a few issues and raises quite a few others. “Simplicity” for example.
Lets discuss over BCB5 various ways of making BCB6 better. In the meanwhile we will do our best to make BCB5 as enjoyable as possible. I wanna acknowledge your concern and commitment towards BCB
. And as a responsible member of the community (which is evident from your post) I invite you to moderate a GD on ‘How to organize the next BCB’ collective. This might be like the feedback session that we typically have everytime. But this time lets have more Action points covered, more responsibilities assumed, more misunderstandings cleared … something like the pulse of the community. Lets give it 2 hours time before the close of Day 2. It would be great if you have one of the current organizers (Aditya maybe) to team up with you towards the same.
I am eager to learn on all that is missing in the current version of BCB, the presence of which will create lasting joy and satisfaction to the community. Looking forward to the subsequent versions of BCB being an experience that cannot be replaced in any other community, and with each one better-ing the other.
What say?
I appreciate the way in which you have put your points accross. You saw a problem and you proposed solutions (thereby taking responsibility rather than holding another responsible)! The organizers invest a *lot* in making the event happen. And we do so entirely out of our passion and commitment. And even though there should be no attachment to our efforts being acknowledged, being human, we (atleast I
) would have gotten dissappointed if you would have chosen to just speak your views without suggesting something fruitful. It would have sounded like accusition. So thanks again for putting it accross beautifully.
Looking forward to meet you on Saturday!
Cheers,
Amit
Hey Amit
Thanks for the awesome reply! I do understand the idea behind collective, but my only concern is on confusion it creates. So, for e.g. if we go back to say 4 categories, we add a Misc (and allows all non-Internet/Mobile/Tech related stuff to go there).
It’s all about experimentation and like i said earlier, this is a good problem to have (worse problem had been that BCBs are attended by same 50 oldies!
)
Lets meet up @ BCB5 and take things forward.! I will surely hook up with Aditya and will lead the session on “Feedbacks/Action items”!
As always, BCBs rock and I do look forward to meeting tons of exciting ppl!
The biggest problem ive been noticing in the newer barcamps is the lack of content. There are interesting collectives, but not enough/good content in them. Should’nt the collectives then be created based on topics that people have signed up to talk/present/demo? Currently it is the other way around where anyone can create a collective and only later do we look for people to talk/present.
Well, out of 10 contents only 1 will be so interesting to make one’s barcamp attendance worthwhile. For e.g. in BCB3, that single piece was a presentation by a lawyer (from creative commons).
The collective thing is confusing – none of the collectives are 2-day event. so why not club them in under an umbrella collective?
@Ashash,
Superb! Lets make BCB5 rock.
Lets work towards creating an environment that invites participation, is fun, and has a lot of focused discussions.
@Suresh and everyone
Yes, quality of Content is becoming an issue. In Bangalore we have so many smarts, What do you think is the reason for not having many specialized talks?
This is another issue we gotta collectively address.
Regards,
Amit
Pingback: @ Bangalore Barcamp |Indian startups, India Business
Pingback: Barcamp 5 Bangalore and the controversies « Me … A Geek … No way!!