ann arbor’s “barcamp-esque” non-camping non-barcamp

Have you heard of BarCamp? It’s like a big nerd slumber party. At least that’s how I’ve always envisioned it. The first one was in Palo Alto in 2005. A lot of intelligent folks came together for a day to discuss open source technology, emerging web-aps, and the like. It was, by all accounts, a great community-building exercise, and it grew. Other BarCamps started popping up around the world… Well, it looks like An Arbor is finally joining the club. It’s just been announced that what they’re calling ArbCamp is going to be held on October 27. It’s $15 for the day, and another $50 if you want to hear the keynote… That’s right, unlike most other BarCamps, participants are expected to pay. (They’re typically sponsored events, free to those who pre-register.) And, as you might expect, that’s rubbing a few in the local tech community the wrong way. Following is an exchange lifted from the ArbCamp entry on ArborWiki:

Angry Person 1: How did this turn into a for-pay corporate marketing event? This sucks! Where are all the geeks doing the technology show-n-tell? Marketers, poets, businesspeople? WTF! This is not “barcamp-style”! Someone set us up the bomb!

ArbCamp Marketing Person: Well, we have to charge admission to meet fixed costs for the event, which is basically food. Hopefully after a success or two it’ll be easier to line up enough sponsorship and related energy to make the next one free; all part of the difficulty of importing cool stuff into this geographic area. Free is the price point I wanted, too… but $15 for bunch of people and food and a day of happy hacking isn’t a bad deal, IMO, either. And yes, we are looking for a more diverse group of people than is typical for barcamps; this comes out of the success of the RecentChangesCamps in attracting techies AND people that use the tech to do whatever they do. That’s why it’s not ‘just’ barcamp Ann Arbor. If you want to organize a barcamp Ann Arbor that better fits what you are looking for I’d very gladly attend :) Thanks for your thoughts.

Angry Person 2: Hrm – for some reason other BarCamps and Open events have managed to not charge a fee for pre-registered attendees. How does charging a fee bring together a more diverse group? Can people opt-out of food for free attendance? BarCamp doesn’t just mean that it is a free event (in fact, that is debatable as it’s perfectly fine to charge a small fee to ensure attendance), but it should mean that there is NO PREVIOUSLY SET SCHEDULE, and NO ‘STARS’ (i.e. hierarchies are forbidden, it’s an open grid, which means that your keynote can come and fill his own session in with everyone else). As well, sponsorships are limited at actual BarCamps to prevent corporate takeover. If it is BarCamp or BarCamp-like, it needs to be about the community. This may be very loosely inspired by BarCamp’s outcome: people gathering around technology. But that isn’t what BarCamp is about. It is about chaos and grassroots. This conference appears to have neither. WTF? I completely agree with the above… This event is completely counter to the spirit of inclusion, diversity, openness and equality of every BarCamp I’ve attended. If the organizers of this event want to hold a for-profit corporate event with an old fashioned stand-and-deliver style, “he’s more important than you” keynote speaker, that’s cool…but don’t try and leech off the good name of BarCamp- it’s deceptive. I find it hard to believe that cities all over the world have been able to summon the creativity and resourcefulness to organize BarCAmp meetings with no admission fee- but not Ann Arbor. For shame.

ArbCamp Marketing Person: In response to the cost issue, you can now attend for a nominal $5 fee if you want to BYOFD to the event. We also added Student pricing; full day conference w/ the Jaffe talk is only $35 for students. If a business wants to sponsor students they can: Send a Student to Arb Camp…

I’m not a techie, so I should probably just shut the fuck up, but the criticism in this case seems valid. Marketing a for-profit event as “BarCamp-esque” and suggesting that it needed to be done in such a way because Ann Arbor, for whatever reason, can’t support a legitimate BarCamp, seems to me to be weak in the extreme. And the planners of this event should have known better. I’m curious to know what my technically-inclined readers think.