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Saturday the 5th of July saw the inaugural Gold Coast barcamp, held at the Griffith University campus at Southport. This post is just a brain dump of some of my thoughts from the day - there are other more complete wrap-ups which I’ll link to at the bottom of this post.

Despite the very cool, rainy day (or maybe because it encouraged folks to stay indoors to talk) there was a really good vibe amongst attendees. Some of the talks that stood out for me were the four below.

Data portability - Chris Saad/Ashley Angell
Chris and Ashley gave a brief talk on where data portability is up to. While those in the room appeared to be already well versed on the data portability push (there was another session running concurrently next door which may have had some folks who weren’t so familiar with the topic), there were a few questions raised which prompted some discussion. One of these questions was to do with the current usability of OpenID from an end-user’s point of view. More info on data portability at the data portability homepage.

Ajax pushing techniques - Ben Novakovic

Ben gave an easy-to-follow presentation on three different pushing techniques available when using AJAX for web applications.  I, for one, have been interested in finding out more about AJAX and the possibilities it opens up, so the content of this presentation was particularly useful. Ben has blogged about the presentation on his blog.

Panedia - Aaron Spence

As was the case at the last Brisbane barcamp with the MS Silverlight demonstration, one presentation at the Gold Coast barcamp stood out for being visually spectacular. That presentation was Aaron Spence’s look at his company Panedia’s offerings. Spence and his team have developed their own workflow/method for producing stunning panoramas reminiscent (although of much better image quality, as Aaron pointed out) of the Google Street Maps images. Panedia also offer static images which can be used as desktop wallpapers and Aaron talked about some of their strategies for monetising their content going forward. Panedia.com is well worth a look if you’re interested in seeing some great australian images.

Social Media Club - Des Walsh

Des gave an introduction to the Brisbane Chapter of the Social Media Club. Although Des is from Tweed Heads, he has volunteered to lead the new Brisbane Chapter, at least initially. The barcamp discussion indicated there is a lot of enthusiasm both in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast for more meet-ups, and the Social Media Club will likely be one vehicle which facilitates the growth of gatherings where the ‘Social Media’ tag brings people together, but won’t necessarily be the only topic du jour. Personally I feel that there is a lot of value in bringing Social Media, New Media and Web/Enterprise 2.0 people together to have conversations on a wide range of subjects, and I feel that SMC is going to be a good start in connecting people in South East Queensland.

All in all it was a worthwhile trip down to the Gold Coast for me and one that I intend doing again when the next Gold Coast barcamp is on! Many thanks to Steve Dalton for un-organising the day - all seemed to go off without a hitch, thanks largely to Steve.

Other links/wrap-ups about the day:

Michael Rees: http://mrees.wordpress.com/2008/07/06/inaugural-barcamp-gold-coast/

Steve Dalton: http://dalts.net/node/123

David Novakovic: http://dpn.name/index.php/2008/07/06/barcampgoldcoast-thoughts/

Des Walsh: http://deswalsh.com/2008/07/07/barcamp-a-first-for-the-gold-coast-and-for-me/

UPDATE: DJ Paine has posted his photos from the day in a set on Flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/djp72/sets/72157606022985427

Last Saturday the 2nd Barcamp Brisbane was held at the East Brisbane Bowls Club. This was my first Barcamp and here are some thoughts on the day and on future meet-ups I’d like to see happen in South-East Queensland.

We managed to take over the bowls club for the day, with over 40 people attending. There were two areas - one for slightly more formal presentations with a data projector and the other for informal sit-down discussion of topics of choice. All but two of the presentations were tech-focussed, and varied from an introduction to Adobe AIR to ‘Why I changed to Ruby on Rails’. Easily the most eye-catching presentation was the Silverlight Deep Zoom Demonstration.

Cameron Reilly kicked off the day with a talk which challenged all of us geeks and semi-geeks to wake up to the amazing inheritance which our forefathers worked and fought for. Cameron challenged us to use our talents and technologies to make the world a better place. After a bbq lunch put on by the bowls club, Ian Kath took the stage and shared his passion for podcasting while pointing out to us that the tools which we use as geeks are not at all simple to layman end-users - a fact that Ian challenges all of us to remember as we undertake our tech. journeys.

The highlight of the day for me was the talk by Elias Bizannes on Data Portability, not least of which because DP is a topic which I follow with interest. Elias flew up from Sydney specially, and it was worth hearing him speak. He drew attention to a number of the issues surrounding DP and (judging by the flurry of questions and comments) he certainly got us all thinking about this very topical issue, in these days of seemingly never-ending sign-ups as we all race to try out new web services.

I took time during the day to meet as many people as I could get around, and managed to fit in some evangelising about the uses/benefits of Twitter. I also had a conversation about Twitter’s inability to scale, which sadly reared its head again in the days leading up to the Barcamp. Friendfeed ‘Rooms’ were announced the day before Barcamp, and I took the opportunity to tout those as well. To me, FF rooms allow the possibility of better conversations than can be had on Twitter, and it will be interesting to watch how the rooms idea is taken up. I digress, however..

All in all Barcamp Brisbane 2 was a fantastic day, and I came away thinking about how I yearn to meet more South East Queensland folks more often. Once every 6 months will not do! It is my intention to do more to organise Twitter Underground Brigade meet-ups and also to go to other Barcamps, such as the Gold Coast Barcamp, tentatively slated for the 5th of July 2008 at the time of writing. I also hope to catch up with people over coffee etc in order to keep the momentum of some great conversations going.

A big shout-out to Peter Ward for ‘un-organising’ the day, and Steve Dalton for assisting on the day, even though not in an official ‘un-organising’ capacity.

Links:

Wrap-up of the sessions by Chris Vincent

http://www.brisbaneishome.com/brisbane-barcamp-2008-post-1/

http://www.brisbaneishome.com/brisbane-barcamp-2008-post-2/

Google groups

http://groups.google.com/group/barcampbrisbane

http://groups.google.com/group/barcampgoldcoast