Andy Mitchell

So, first experiences of Barcamp… The presentations were mixed (and I include the 3 dogs in that…); but stand out props go to,

• Ian Forrester for a discussion on Pipes (not just Yahoo Pipes). To distill this, I believe the pipes metaphor has been gathering dust; but is extremely relevant for what the Web should be. No simple ‘destinations’, but a set of sites and services that are either an input, and output, or both. I.e. all sites should contribute and collaborate with other sites.
  Ian wants to include the desktop in there too (as an input); and while this is a fertile hunting ground for ‘personal’ information - e.g. your documents, bookmarks, etc. - I think it’s merit is only in helping transition away from the desktop. That is, pull desktop information while it still exists; but do not build future services around it.
• Julian and Olga Harris had a great presentation on their SkillCards idea. I loved this for two reasons. First, I love the idea that they will open up a good business idea to a frankly hawkish crowd; in the name of sharing and collective improvement. Second, it is very closely related to what we’re doing with Meecard, helping freelancers get jobs (and helping the people that need freelancers). It was, I readily concede, the missing link to a lot of ideas we have in the works.
• Lastly, James Darling who presented on ‘Profit Maximisation’ - which immediately attracted, wrongly he says, the business crowd. The tenant of his argument was “you don’t have to go public”; and while I think the arguments were a little off, they were superbly backed up with facts; and he was very cool under fire (which I thought significant, given he was just 18!)

BT HQ… I overheard one BT player who shall remain anonymous say that Barcamp had successfully “increased loyalty to the BT brand“, before quickly catching himself to say “err, I mean increased awareness“. Certainly, it is appreciated that they risk letting the geeks have their building for a weekend; although I was a little surprised that the music, lights, TVs and everything else are on 24/7.
Between Barcamp and their presentation at FOWA, it seems BT are at least awake to what shifts are occuring in technology and related-business.

Special note to Cefn Hoile, a BT researcher. I found Cefn’s research work very interesting; from coordinating hundreds of thousands of physical events (from flipping a lightswitch upwards) - Diet Agents - to discussions on mechanisms for connecting people without disclosing private information. It’s easy to think in this current environment that everything revolves around light weight Web services and being first to market; Cefn’s research felt strangely nourishing.

It was a pleasure to meet more of the Microformats crowd, I had good chats with Glenn Jones and Brian Suda, both of whom are almost effervescent with titbits and ideas around the subject. I also caught up with Dan Webb, a well-known JS guy who had written an expressive Microformat parser.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 22nd, 2007 at 1:27 pm and is filed under Chasing Cats.