Editorial: An Inside Look At BarCamp NOLA 3

Day 1: The “Unconference” Part: Presentations, Networking, & Learning

Packed House @ LaunchPad NOLA on Day 1

BarCamp NOLA 3 kicked off on the morning of July 17^th with a room packed of attendees, some eager to get started and others a little confused as to what would happen.  Similar to a kids on the first day of school, 1^st timers to BarCamp nibbled on breakfast with nervous anticipation while veterans folded their arms like seniors waiting for everything to kicked off.

The unconference was kicked off with short intros.  Everyone in the room had to say why they came to BarCamp NOLA using three adjectives and a little bit about themselves.  Approximately ninety peoples ranging from designers to teachers went around the room telling their 10 second stories and getting to know each other.  Once the introductions where over, Matthew Tritico & Nicky Mast, the two organizers of BarCamp NOLA laid the ground rules.  Then a mad dash was made to the “sign up” board.

The Signup Board

In the true essence of BarCamp style gatherings, presentations are not pre-assigned.  Rather there is a mix of people that might want to stand up and talk about something that day or others who have prepared a presentation on a particular topic.  With 30 minute slots throughout the day, its first come first serve if you want to talk in front of your peers.  Our very own Champ Superstar did an impromptu talk about her experience with Yahoo! Pipes while Anselm von Seherr gave a very technical seminar on computer graphics integration into action footage and pictures.  I attended several workshops throughout the day but the ones I enjoyed the most were David Claiborne’s “Getting Organized in the Google Era” and Candice Quates spill out her knowledge on computer viruses and malware.

During lunch, Matt Candler talked about the day 2 hack day/community service project that the group would undertake.  Usually, the participants from day 1 will come back on day 2, put their collective heads together and bang out a tech project for the common good.  Lunch was great (minus snowballs this year. Note to self: Help BarCamp find a snowball sponsor for next year) and we got to partake in some geek banter while figuring out how the day 2 project would come together.

Computer Graphics Preso

Even though I was a veteran of BarCamp NOLA and already had the experience of presenting twice, there is always something new to soak in.  This year, presentations covered a wide range of interesting topics, more “new” people came, and the atmosphere of the knowledge being passed around made a geek feel at home.

Day 2: Community Service Project/Hack Day

If day 1 wasn’t intense enough, day 2 surely added on pressure.  With about ¾ of the group that showed up the first day we gathered at the Ice House, a co-working place in Uptown New Orleans to put our technical and creative skills to the test.  This years project focused on New Orleans educators.  The goal:  to create an online community for the educators working to close the achievement gap in NOLA public schools.  A group of non-techies (educators, principals, and teachers) explained to us that they were looking for a sense of community, something that would help them reach out to others in the city like themselves who were working tirelessly to change the public school system in the city.  By no means would a simple website solve that problem but it would be a start.

Concept Teams Sitemap

Technial Teams Works On Drupal Install

I’ve worked on project teams before and just a group of five or ten can be crazy to manage….try a group of fifty.  Luckily, Matt & Nicky once again showed their true talents at being able to organize, manage, and delegate.  The entire group was split up into two separate teams:  a concept team (the content creators, the overview thinkers) and the technical team (that worked on the more technical aspect of the project: website platform, modules, code, server setup, etc).  The plan worked with runners going back and forth to bring ideas from the concept team back to the technical.  There was minimal fussing, hardly any arguments, and unselfishness on the part of everyone.  Partly because everyone knew that the clock was ticking and whatever they worked on had to be finished by 4PM that same day.  But more because you felt like you were apart of something greater than yourself, you might have worked on a simple module or a piece of code but people where depending on you…everyone was depending on everyone else.  It was almost of sense that you could not fail and no matter what the day brought, you had to deliver.

The final project:  Closing the NOLA gap.  An intro video from Duke Bradley, III, Principal & Founder of Benjamin E. Mays Preparatory School, educators who are serious about school reform, a visual points data map using Google docs, a user management area for educators to engage each other, and a solid website that the teaching community can build upon.  Projects like this are rare and by the skin of their teeth, the group pulled off the project successfully.

Closing the Gap Intro from Closing the NOLA Gap on Vimeo.

The take away?  You walk away from a two day event tired, mentality drained, and fatigued.  But if you like learning about new types of technologies, if you like connecting with other like-minded people from your own community, and if you feed off a sense of accomplishment using your own skills then the trade off is well worth it.  The experience of BarCamp NOLA is one that will leave you re-energized weather you’re a newbie or a vet.  Now a local tradition, BarCamp NOLA showcases the amount of talent and the sense of the community that oozes out of the NOLA tech scene.