A wiki book on unconferences

The more I think about the concept of unconferences, the more I like it. Unconferences are the most fertile ground for learning. Maybe not traditional learning, but what I call kickstart learning. A learner gets a kickstart onto concepts which he may want to explore in-depth later. And off course no one prevents users from having in-depth discussions in an unconference either.

It's an awesome way to do a conference because no one can monopolize it. If participants do not find a speaker engaging, they can simply move on to another track. Most important, everyone can (and must) contribute. If you have something nice to share with the world, well ... you can just go ahead and talk about it at a barcamp. You do not have to get invited to speak.

So I am really glad that someone has come up with the idea of writing a book on unconferences in the true spirit of the word. The book will be a wiki book... written by many contributing authors over a period of some months. I will definetely contribute the best I can.

Take Blogcamp to Blogosphere

We have just come up with the first Blogcamp Pune widget. You can add Blogcamp Pune Feeds in to your blog, by just copy pasting 2 lines of code in your sidebar area. This will help us spread word about Blogcamp Pune and more people in Blogosphere will be able to know about it.


Keep looking for the Blogcamp Pune Widgets section on the sidebar as we will be rolling out few more widgets in coming time.

16th June 2007 The Blogger's Day!!!

We have the date YES!!! Blogcamp Pune will be held on 16th June 2007 at SCIT (Symbiosis Center for IT) Pune. Make you plan for the event in advance and be there to celebrate the Blogger's Day (just another marketing buzz word, to attract all of you).

Updates:
1. We had a meeting with the Director of SCIT and the date for the event was finalized. She was very enthusiastic about having this event at SCIT.
2. First meeting of the unorganizers, at Crosswords, S.B Road Pune. People present were Ajay (itvidya), Paraga Shah, Tushar Gandotra (latest addition) & Tarun Chandel. Discussed the future plan and few ideas.
3. Now the focus will be on getting the sponsors and spreading word about the Blogcamp Pune.
4. We still need a designer for logos and banners.
5. Contacted organizers of Bacamps in Mumbai, Pune and Chennai. There are few who have agreed to help us organizing this event. We were supposed to meet Narain (Barcamp Chennai) and Kiran Thakkar (Bapcamp Pune) but due to shortage of time couldn't meet. They will be interacting using mails and phone.
Added:
6. Mohit Pawar (Barcamp Mumbai) has also agreed to help us. Received a mail from him and will be meeting him sometime soon.

I have a hunch that, this is going to be really good event. Be there!!!

We have a Venue, SCIT

It's a great news for Blogcamp Pune. We have a venue, SCIT (Symbiosis Center for Information Technology) will be hosting the Blogcamp Pune.

A very special thanks to Ms. Shaila Kagal, Director SCIT, for her support.

Complete Address:
Symbiosis Center for Information Technology (SCIT)
Plot 15, Rajiv Gandhi InfoTech Park, Hinjawadi,
Pune - 411057. Maharashtra. India.

Website: www.scit.edu

You can take a look at our venue on wikimapia.

Now that the venue is finalized, we need to start working on getting good sponsors for the event. We still need a designer to design a logo for us. I have been talking to few people but still to find a designer who is ready to design a logo for us.

There is another great news for Blogcamp Pune, we have Swajana team who will be shooting a video for us. That too at SCIT, this is a great start!

Blogging for an audience of 'one'

Sometimes when I talk to people about blogging, a very common question I am asked is:

but there is so much stuff on the Internet anyways... who will read my blog?

and my answer usually is, even if no one reads your blog, it will still have an audience of at least one person - you. Think about it, when you make notes in a class, do you do it because someone else is going to read those notes? No... they are for yourself. When you write a journal, or just some thoughts on a peice of paper, do you write for anyone else to read? No... they are again for yourself. So why should anyone get discouraged from blogging because they do not yet have an audience?

Your thoughts, ideas, and perspectives are part of your creative output, which needs to get expressed. Different people express their creativity in different ways: writing, painting, making, music... and blogging is one of the several ways for your creativity to manifest.

And you never know... you just might get an audience...

Before I conclude this post, I must say one thing: do not feel compelled to blog because it's the in thing, or you somehow feel that you have to blog because your friends are blogging. It's more of a calling... if you feel the calling you will start to create and share.

Get blogging!

So, the question that comes up very often in any individual's mind who has heard of blogging is that why should people be blogging? Why should I write, I am not a writer? or Look, blogging is all about making yourself famous over the web, I dont want to be famous, this whole Web 2.0 stuff is bull shit!(this was the response of one of the managers at my company whom I was trying to convince for blogging).

Well, people should be blogging because if they feal concerned about anything thats happening around and no one seem to be listening to them, than a blog is the best way for expressing and creating an audiance.
Or, if you think your life is interesting and worth sharing...just blog,believe me its better way, pardon your freinds who are tired of hearing your same old story .. they will be happy by following it via your blog :)
Or just blog for the sake of blogging... atleast read blog... this is the most interesting thing on the web!
I am sure there 1000 better way to answer the questions... but the point is just Blog!

My question: what should bloggers be discussing in BlogCamp Pune?

Ranjan's experience at a Blogging Unconference

Ranjan Jha wrote about his experience at Global Voices meet at New Delhi

The meeting sarted with a brief intro about GV by the founders Ethan Zuckerman and Rebecca MacKinnon, the primary aim of GV is to make the world listen to what is happening the world except America and western Europe. So were the participants, bloggers from Maldives, Tunisia, Brazil, China, Uganda, kenya, France, combodia, Poland, Germany, Taiwan and only few from India were present. Well the most unusual gathering where the first question people ask " Are you a blogger?" answer: "yes" next question " What do you write?" answer" hmmm.., some tech, some biz and mostly crap".

A good post to know about what to expect at an unconference, though Blogcamp Pune will be little different as it's not been organized by any organization like GV.

Parag on Unconferences and open spaces

Parag wrote about Unconferences and Open Spaces:

Open spaces has a huge potential for learning and education. We are living in a time when technology is changing very rapidly and people have different learning requirements for the same technology. .....

What we need is an environment where people can pursue their learning needs at a speed and depth of their choice. I think open spaces offers one way to create such a personalized learning environment.

Do go through it to know more about unconferences.

What is a Blogcamp?

BlogCamp is a free unconference focusing exclusively on blogging, organized by bloggers for bloggers. It‘s built upon the principles of the famous BarCamp (ad-hoc unconference) focussed on sharing, learning and new ideas.

Let's start with Unconference: No it's not a spelling mistake, it is unconference and as you might have guessed it just opposite of a conference. So there is no audience to start with and you cant give a speech. Wait a minute there is no audience and no speech then what do people do?? There is no audience there are only participants and they don't give speeches they share their knowledge. The environment is very informal and leads a lot of discussions.

Barcamp is an ad-hoc unconference where you don't have a predefined theme and topics of discussion. People use wiki to post their likings and what they will be sharing. Then on the day of camp campers share their knowledge, they give demos of their work and discuss with other campers.

Blogcamp is an unconference focusing exclusively on Blogging. I think this line makes much more sense now. So Blogcamp is all of the above but limited to blogs and bloggers.

I hope I have made the idea of Bogcamp a little clearer.

It's ON

Planning for BlogCampPune has started. Though nothing is finalized yet, other than that it will be held in Pune in the month of June 2007.

Do visit:
Blogcamp Pune wiki.