Non Society's Julia Allison, Me & CNET's Caroline McCarthy at foocamp
Last weekend, I was invited to Tim O’Reilly’s campus for the 2nd Annual Social Web Foocamp. They invited 170 thinkers and pioneers in the social media space ranging from developers and founders to journalists and bloggers. It was different than any other conference I had been to before- it’s actually pegged as an unconference. I would describe it as a thinktank or a meeting of the online minds…
1) Everything is kept pretty much kept confidential- what happens at foocamp stays at foocamp.
2) Most people stay at the campus over the two nights, camping in tents outdoors or setting up their sleeping bags in office cubicles. Thanks to Dave Morin from Facebook who let me stay in his super cool RV!
3) Sessions are not organized before the event, but are created by the participants the first night who are encouraged to put up the sessions they want to lead on life-size schedule boards.
4) Some hot topics included Open ID, social network privacy, web TV, bringing together the geek and non-geek communities and social media for social good.
5) Werewolf (which I had never played and still remain horrible at) is the late night game of choice!
Speaking of that, watch this interview I did with James Cox during a game of Werewolf that he was leading. James started the CNNBRK twitter account that initiated the big hoopla with Ashton Kutcher the other week. CNN has since “acquired” the account from Cox. He hasn’t revealed if or what he was paid by CNN, but he remains a consultant of sorts.
So what did I get out of foocamp? Besides meeting an array of truly fascinating individuals that are constantly thinking about what’s possible and what’s next, I was reinforced with the fact that we all need to really work on WORKING TOGETHER: silicon valley & the non valley folks (L.A.-NYC) as well as the developers and content creators.
See what people were buzzin’ about at foocamp #swfoo
