Went along to the first ever Barcamp Scotland yesterday with Alan, Clarke and Fraser. I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect, but it was an interesting experience.

The general concept is that it’s all very informal and everyone participates to some degree. On arrival we wrote our names on bits of paper along with 3 words to “tag” ourselves. This was then cellotaped to our chests leading to the usual conference chest-gazing at strangers.

There were 4 whiteboards (indicating different areas) where people who wanted to give a talk on their chosen subject could add their subject to a time slot. The opening ceremony over ran slightly meaning there was a bit of shuffling later on, but it was a fairly simple format.

The opening introduction was from the Informatics Dept of Edinburgh University, one of the events sponsors. I think they may have misunderstood their audience as they showed us a video obviously aimed at capturing undergraduates! We then got a fairly vague explanation of the sub-departments involved in the Informatics before the speaker was given the hook for taking too long!

Everyone was then invited to give a speed dating introduction of themselves, in 10 seconds or less. It was a good ice breaker, even if some did feel the need to try and squeeze in a pitch.

The main event proper started, with people breaking off into one of the 4 areas to listen to a speaker, or just chatting with those who hadn’t.

The first speaker Alan and I went to listen too was demonstrating “pipes”, or how to make XML go faster! Unfortunately he couldn’t get on the local network to show us a demonstration, but Alan seemed to enjoy the talk so it must have been good. More at Markup Technologies.

At this point I’d like to explain that somewhere down the line of working from home for the last 3 years, I’ve become either very cynical or very grumpy. Actually a combination of both.

The second speaker we went to listen to had seemed fairly interesting when we looked at the whiteboards, promoting a new browser. No offence to the chap who was presenting it, he seemed like a nice fella, but repackaging Firefox and adding blogging widgets to the source code does not a “new browser” make. You can make up your own mind by visiting Flock.

The most rewarding part of the event for me was hearing from Dan Champion who gave a talk about his new book review site, Revish, currently in late development stages. He didn’t give too much away, but definitely has the passion to make it work.

A few more interesting chats later, a group of 20 or so hard-core campers headed off to the Teviot, to fulfill the “Bar” part of the Barcamp. To be honest I enjoyed this part of the day most of all, just sitting down shooting the breeze with Clarke, Fraser and Alan. Possibly because there was Guinness involved?

So was it worth it? Fraser will be pleased to hear me say yes. It certainly made me more aware of current issues / projects / general happenings, although I did wonder how a lot of the concepts we heard were ever going to make someone a living.

Apparently the organisors are considering having another Barcamp in Glasgow in the autumn, so hopefully I’ll be allowed back.

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