I attended CloudCamp at San Francisco, it was an “unconference” about cloud computing. It was so exciting to be there among 300 developers, enterpreneurs and businessman. Being in Silicon Valley is one of the best parts of my U.S. experience, you can feel the innovation that is going on when you see all these passionate people talking about new technologies.The event was organized by a bunch of people, and they did it in less than 3 weeks. Sponsor money was used to provide food and cover other small expenses such as printing posters, name tags and t-shirts.

It lasted from 5 PM to 9 PM, with a party afterwards. There were 10 conference rooms, with three 1 hour sessions in each of them, so there were 30 sessions in total. The interesting part is that there was no agenda for the conference, at the beginning, people just walk up to the stage and announce the topic they would like to talk about. Then these people become moderators for those topics and write the topic on a pice of paper and put it on the board. This becomes the schedule for the conference. Using the wisdom of crowds, the agenda is determined in a very democratic and collaborative way.

In an “unconference”, sessions are very interactive and participatory compared to a conference. Audience is free to leave a session if they’re not happy, and the audience can guide the conversation or take over the whole session if they’d like. People are encouraged to ask questions, and share their experiences in an open forum fashion.

The kind of people who attended were people working at companies that provide platforms or infastructure for cloud computing. There were many people from start-ups as well, they tried to promote their products.

Sessions were specific, and geared towards people that are experienced in this field. Compared to a conference, there were no speakers, or presentations, so it didn’t involve much formal learning. You had to be experienced in that area and ask the right questions to the knowledgable people to learn what you need. It’s a great networking opportunity as well.

Overall, this was one of the most interesting events I attended, I’m still fascinated by this BarCamp  idea.