Attencion! Camp — Starbuck vs. Samwise in a Fight (and what does that have to do with the Attention Economy?)
Posted by bryanzug - 2009/02/27
As I’m getting around to documenting some of the fun things I’ve gotten to do over the last year, this one was quite the blast. I updated my (Geek Fight * Attention Economy) talk with a new character — this time a woman who kicks serious ass.
At the very first BarCamp Seattle last June, we had a great turnout for “Starbuck vs. Samwise in a Fight (and what does that have to do with the attention economy)”. Here’s the session poster:
I’m not going to give away the thread of the discussion, because that makes it less fun if you ever get to drop in on one of these discussions — but I’ll tell you this, they are lively, fun, and get everyone to think.
I learn a ton every time I facilitate it.
Wanted to take a bit of time to note it because this theme of attention keeps coming up.
While at the Seattle Drupal User Group’s MiniCamp this last Saturday, Gregory Heller, Scott Falconer, Larry Swanson, and I began talking about how we need a camp about content that is tool independent and all about “signaling through the noise”.
Since “content” is such a boring word, I suggested an “Attention Camp“, which seemed to strike a chord.
Looking around for a domain, “attentioncamp.com” is being squatted — so I went with the next best things —
- attencioncamp.com (we could all use a little revolucion! no?)
- attncamp.com (140 char headline writing seems to be seeping into my thinking)
So we’ll see — I’m pinging possible partners in crime to see if this thing has legs. If you are interested, tweet me and join the discussion.
FooBar Sessions as Literature
Posted by bryanzug - 2006/08/29
Berkun has a great writeup of his FooCamp experience from last weekend. Sounds like a great time.
Found myself nodding with this lowlight observation ––
I’m guessing fewer sessions were recorded or taped this year. I don’t know why, but the vibe was much less about blogging, posting and publishing in real-time than last year. Maybe this is not a lowlight – not sure.
Seems to me that this is both a highlight and a lowlight. In one sense, people are more focused on engaging with the stuff around them –– the facilitator, the content, the people, the space.
That’s a big win in my book as the ‘must blog’ buzz is subsiding in favor of more human lids down engagement (laptops, not eyes).
On the other hand, having just done a full weekend of session video capture at BarCamp Vancouver, it’s a lowlight to me that so many great conversations that could have been captured and passed on just won’t.
In a sense, our ‘now’ orientation keeps us from seeing the connections that are waiting to happen outside of the room/people/time of a particular setting like this.
And yet, when things get captured decently, they have great potential to take on a kind of life of their own — making connections and sparking fires that we can’t see in the moment — kind of like good literature does over the ages.
Even capturing a session that is not hit-it-out-of-the-park-fantastic is fun for me because the presenter is always really grateful and will usually go back and see the things they did well and learn things they could do better next time.
All the stuff, those rhetoric classes were supposed to teach you, but, because you never saw the relevance, never did.
Anyway — the weekend was really useful to help me think through this participate/capture dichotomy — lots of ideas percolating on how to bridge the gap.
Can’t wait for Mind Camp 3.0 to try ‘em out.