A few days ago I sent out tweet in reference to Barcamp Nashville 2011 that said, "My one struggle with #bcn11 is that I disagree with the description as an unconference and use of the BarCamp name" Much to my surprise, it got a lot more attention than I was expecting. Unfortunately, I didn't do a good job of explaining what I meant. If there was one part of my tweet I'd ammend, it would be the removal of the part about barcamp as an unconference. In a very general sense, BCN is an unconference and I mispoke when I said different. What follows is my attempt to clarify my meaning.
First and foremost, I want all the volunteers and organizers of bcn11 to know that I think they are doing a great job and trying their best to put on a community driven event. Let me also say that I think Nashville needs what BCN11 is and has become. We need a conference that brings together so many of the different facets of the Nashville tech community in such a relaxed atmosphere.
So if I think Nashville needs what BCN is and I think the volunteers are doing a good job, what did I mean by my comment? It's all in the name. What we have in Nashville isn't a barcamp and never has been a barcamp. What we have in Nashville is a great mini-conference (or unconference) that brings together a whole bunch of different people and only helps the community. It might be pedantic, but using the name Barcamp bothers me. I think it can and does lead to confusion when people see information about what a barcamp is and then experience something different here in Nashville. I think the conference would be better represented by a different name.
TLDR version:
- Volunteers and organizers do a great job
- BCN is a good event for Nashville
- It's not a barcamp so why call it one?
reference: barcamp rules