BarCamp5London

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A BarCamp is where about 100 web geeks spend all weekend together discussing what’s hot and what’s not, and the latest one has just finished at Ebay’s very cool Richmond offices.  The idea is to give a chat on any topic , for example I saw one was called “The Art of Stabbing People”  - had I made a mistake in turning up in a Microsoft t-shirt, I wondered.

imageMy personal favourite was by Tom Whitwell of the Times OnLine  headline writing. He gave a number of top tips to get traffic and interest in what you are doing by being specific, and not being deliberately funny or clever.

My headline of  “Ask Microsoft (no stabbing allowed) ” got a little interest but was up against “css3” and “Bring your own cool gadgets”.  Other sessions where on web anonymity, sleeping with the enemy (given by a couple where each is a designer for a competing web company), and loads of web tech hack stuff..

The most controversial session for me was a discussion about pseudonymity i.e. anonymity on the web by improbulus.  This person is working as hard as possible to remain invisible (except of course by going to BarCamps!). I can accept the need to be really careful about how much you reveal about yourself, to protect your identity from theft and because there trolls and stalkers out there. But if you are commenting on other peoples opinions or work then surely you should answerable and identifiable in some way. Finally, none of the measures discussed will protect you from any concerted attack on your identity whether lawful or otherwise.

So a really great weekend, I wonder if anyone would come if we did one at our office?

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