The highest turn out for BarCamp ever in India. IIMB campus saw more than 350 people pushing themselves in on 28th July to morning to attend the 4th edition of BarCamp in Bangalore. There were lot of first timers as usual. And of course there was the old set of people also. But I felt most people who turned up as first timers in BCB3 were missing this time around.
Personally, I felt the idea of collectives is really good and should be pursued in larger interests in the long run. This idea of collectives from how I see should be taken forward to form communities and exchange information regularly. The one problem which I saw was people from different background and who couldnt align themselves to any collective were feeling lost. Yes, there can be some fine tunings but anyone can jump in with ideas.
(Big guns)
Also, its really strange that of the 1% population with access to internet, I feel only 40% in this keep themselves updated of the world around in the internet zone. Most first timers still expect barcamp to be an completely 100% perfectly organized conference. I wish the first timers would first look into the internet and read completely on barcamps before stepping in. And also the idea of making barcamp info as pdf file is all waste of time. Making pdf files and storing it somewhere then doesnt give any meaning to the way wiki is moving in.
In an un-conference everyone chips in whatever best they can do.
So, I took up the registration desk along with few others to manage the flow of crowd. After the usual intro session, people dispersed off to their own collective. I did not register myself to collectives except “Biking in Bangalore” and “Photography”. Rest of the time was spent talking to new people and old timers and clicking some photographs.
Biking in Bangalore collective, well quite a few people are interested in cycling. Shreekumar whom I have known for sometime through earlier ride done with him, we all had useful tips from Rohan, Nikhil, KP. Shree is also planning on a Coorg ride from Bangalore for 5 days in August, while someone else is cycling on Pune coast to Mumbai I think sometime in August again. We also discussed on riding in Bangalore, how some of them do it regularly, some don’t, some want to in future. All in all it was worth the time spent.
Photography collective had interested people coming together to share on what they think is good photography and what subject one should choose. The lighting control and other technicalities. Some of them take really nice photos. What I feel is, my photo might suck for somebody but there are lot of reasons why I would have a taken a photo in that way and of course, its for my memory. If you dont like a photo, one can give recommendations but never be negative about it. One valid point I heard was when you see a photo look at it from technicality point of view rather than the people covered in the photo. This is how one learns over a period of time.
At the end of Day 1, how else to finish except loosing something??!!
Day 2, Mahendran and myself were the first to arrive at the venue.
There was no one apart from us. We came early to take some few photos. This actually lead us to eating well in the canteen before others came in. Not that we did not eat something more when others came in. But this was such a dumb question that could have ever been asked. Am sitting there with Mahen’s camera and Mahen is on the first floor shooting pictures with mine, when two guys walk in and ask “No one has come?”. Hello, arent we sitting right there. I could only see it as problem of translating from native language to English directly.
5 of us sat along for eco-friendly session by Aswin of cruisemaniac. Aswin had been talking the same thing on earlier day with whomever he saw and he talked the same again. The discussion generally kept wavering but not very much away from the main topic in discussion. After the session we had some more talk at Cafe Coffee Day.
The one session I liked was creating your own virtual band with the s/w Reason 3. Its a huge file so I should be downloading @ my home. And I would definitely try something out on that in days to come. Thanks to Jayanth who took this session.
(Sagaro made to sit like that till the snap was clicked. Its not easy)
Though I did not again sit in most other sessions, time just flew by. And before could realise or it was time for feedback session and regular bye bye’s.
Some of the guys from Chennai and Chennaites in Bangalore who rocked every feedback and intro sessions!!
For all photos of mine, click here.
Tags: BarCamp Bangalore 4, bcb4, Bangalore, India
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