Photo courtesy of Cesar Pinera, www.cesarpinera.com.

Portland’s 6th BarCamp took place last weekend and was a huge success!

Many thanks to our 250+ attendees for creating this vibrant event and for contributing almost $1000 to offset the costs of running the conference. We had 44 sessions and a whole lot of great conversations. We can’t wait to see what great collaborations emerge from all of the brainstorming that went on during BarCamp Portland!

For those who couldn’t make it, you can check out the schedule to see what we talked about. As attendees fill in the notes they took (which are linked from the schedule), you’ll be able to get more of a sense of the conversations and ideas that were floating around. If you attended a session, please add your notes!

If you’re a more visual person, check out the Flickr stream of pictures from the event and feel free to add your own photos of the event.

We had an Indie Game Showcase and Crowd Funding Jam at this year’s event, organized by PixelArtsPDX.  To get involved with this group on the ground level, check out their Google group.

BarCamp Portland 6 also featured a day-long lock-picking workshop, where Kenny from http://toool.us demonstrated and taught techniques to over a hundred attendees, most of whom managed to open a lock during the workshop!

Thank you Volunteers!

Several hundred volunteer hours went in to planning and running this weekend’s event!

Thank you to all volunteers who gave their time to make BarCamp happen:

Kenn Wilson, Risa Dale, Shannon Tennant, Anthony Szabo, Jeffrey Sens, Steph Routh, Rachel Sakry, John Stokes, Chandra Gallipeau, Shalene Gibson, Mary Anne Thygesen, Corey Kasberg, Joe Spitz, Perry Wagle, John Pratt, Robyn Klopp, Cat Poole, Kenny McElroy, Shepherd Griffin, Alicia Nagle, Sherri Montgomery, Dannon Raith, Reid Beels, Audrey Eschright, Jim Eastman.

Want your name to be on this list for next year’s event? Let us know you’re interested in volunteering.

Thank you Sponsors!

BarCamp happens with the generous support of our sponsors:

• Campaign Monitor provides email marketing software for web designers and their clients.
• Edgelink is a specialized, high-touch, IT staffing and recruiting firm based in Portland, OR and Denver, CO.
• Mozilla‘s mission is to promote openness, innovation and opportunity on the web.
• New Relic‘s mission is to make web applications run better, to make the internet more productive, and to make life easier for developers and devops.
• DRY Soda is soda re-imagined: better tasting and better for you.

Please visit our sponsors and thank them for supporting awesome events like BarCamp Portland.

BarCamp Portland 7

Haven’t RSVP’d yet? There’s still time, so go do it now.

Where

BarCamp Portland will take place at the First Unitarian Church’s Eliot Center, 1226 SW Salmon St. View Map.

When

Friday, 3/30: 6:30pm-9pm: Meet other BarCampers, brainstorm session ideas and participate in the Indie Game Showcase and Crowd Funding Jam.

Saturday, 3/31: 9am-9pm: We’ll open doors at 9am. Welcome and Scheduling at 10am.

View the full schedule.

Sessions

There are 7 session rooms across five 50-minute time slots, plus an open evening. Projectors are available in two rooms and these will be noted on the session board. If you need a projector, bring your own, or try to get a room with one of these projectors.

Food

Friday evening we’ll provide beverages and hearty snacks. Saturday morning we’ll provide: morning coffee and tea*. Saturday afternoon and evening we’ll provide hearty snacks and beverages.

*For extra special bonus points, bring some pastries or bagels to share!

You’ll be on your own for Saturday lunch. But, have no fear! Meet up with some fellow campers and check out one of the nearby lunch places.

(Gluten-free and vegan options will be available whenever we serve food.)

Photos | Tags

• Take photos, tweet, blog, etc. Tag: #bcp6
• Flickr Group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/barcampportland/

Note: To ensure that our event is accessible to all, please refrain from using flash photography.

Code of Conduct

Before you arrive, take a minute to read through our Code of Conduct.

Thank you to our wonderful sponsors!

Campaign Monitor provides email marketing software for web designers and their clients.

Edgelink is a specialized, high-touch, IT staffing and recruiting firm based in Portland, OR and Denver, CO.

Mozilla‘s mission is to promote openness, innovation and opportunity on the web.

New Relic‘s mission is to make web applications run better, to make the internet more productive, and to make life easier for developers and devops.

Also, thanks to the many individual contributors to BarCamp Portland 6!

Questions?

Just let us know: info@barcampportland.org.

We look forward to seeing you soon!

In February, video game company Double Fine Adventure asked fans to support their new game by contributing $400,000. After only twelve hours, pledges exceeded $1 million. After less than 30 days, their game became the most funded project in Kickstarter history with over 87 thousand backers contributing more than $3.3 million. In total, they had reached 834% of their funding goal (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/66710809/double-fine-adventure).

Double Fine Adventure’s success has generated massive excitement among indie developers & gamers everywhere. Instead of needing loans or credit, creators are finding new opportunities through our vibrant global community. At BarCamp Portland 6, we will showcase indie video games and explore crowd funding models. The goal of our event is to help local developers and entrepreneurs prototype their projects and discover best practices for crowd funding.

When: March 30th, 6:30-9pm during the opening evening of barcamp

Where: Eliot Center, 1226 SW Salmon St, Portland, OR 97205

What: An exploration of the creativity of Portland’s indie game developers and how to develop a crowdfunding project.

Play, Learn, Connect

Come to a showcase of indie video games by the Portland Indie Game Squad including entries from the Global Game Jam 12. Play games like “Space Tetherball” and “Claustrophobic Typing.” Other entries from the local community are welcome and encouraged.

There will also be a demo of a pre-release version of Johann Sebastian Joust, a graphic-less 7 player game using motion controllers, made by Die Gute Fabrik, a small games studio based in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Learn and Share at the Game Jam Discussion hosted by Portland Indie Game Squad

This session looks at developers’ work flow in time constrained situations. We’ll examine good strategies for making it through a simulation of producing a professional quality project within a strict deadline. Essentially, we’ll tell you how to ride the wave of the 48 hour code jam. How are jam sessions useful for other creative practices? Learn about why people jam and how it helps them innovate. Plus, you’ll get an in-depth look at the world of indie game development, and you don’t even have to get caught in traffic outside Moscone (http://www.gdconf.com/).

Participate in our Portland Crowdfunding Thought Experiment

The game is simple: show your preference amongst 10 KickStarter projects currently seeking funding in the Pacific NW. We’ll be using a simplified form of Dotmocracy – everyone will get to +1 a project using one of the five stickers we’ll give you at the start. It’s cool if you’ve never heard of this Dotmocracy thing before. This is BarCamp. There will be a demo.

The goal of our game is discover best practices and explore how to create local block funding using Kickstarter as a platform. Our jam session, facilitated by Todd Pitt of Zero Strategist, will examine alternative models like IndieGoGo and StartSomeGood. At the end, Pixel Arts will give $200 plus any additional funds raised to the winning Kickstarter project.

About PIxel Arts

Pixel Arts is a new startup in Portland dedicated to causing positive change in the world through video games. They believe in the plethora of the world’s creative endeavors, but they really just like video games.

Their mission is to nurture innovative collaborations that promote social and economic breakthroughs, starting at the local level. They do this by hosting labs that provide education and community networking.

Of course there will be a lot of talks about tech, but Barcamp is about so much more than computers. It’s about social interaction and rich idea exchange – this is why Barcamp has less “presentations” and more “conversations”. Feel like you’re not an expert? No problem! All you have to do is facilitate a conversation on a topic you’re interested in. Feel like it might be too techy for you? This is your call to make it *your* event and get some tech geeks thinking outside of the “box”! Show up by 10am to get your event on the schedule. Don’t feel like leading an official session? Show up at 9 and find someone to co-run it with you, or post a note for interested folks to come meet you outside of an official meeting space–we have a lot of random gathering space in the common areas and courtyard for impromptu gatherings. Just bring your ideas and your voice!

There is room for 35 sessions (and infinite small group chats) between 10am and 6pm and we want you to lead one! Bring a project or idea and an interesting spin on it, to capture people’s imagination, and be prepared to leave richer in inspiration than you arrived. Here’s some ideas for non-tech sessions, but let this be a jumping off point for your even more thrilling thoughts =)

• algorithms for weaving
• urban animal enclosures – protection for chickens and gardens
• feng shue of your home office
• facilitating productive meetings
• a layperson’s guide to appreciating local architecture

Here’s an etherpad on which you can dump half-baked ideas and works in progress for community feedback and brainstorming.

Please RSVP on Eventbrite if you plan to attend so that we can plan accordingly.

Want to know what Barcamp is? Read about it here.

Want to help create Barcamp? Join our planning group and/or attend our next planning meeting on January 23rd from 6:30pm to 8pm at Collective Agency (calagator link). As with every Barcamp, we need your help to make the event run smoothly. Plenty of volunteer positions are available before and during the conference.

Interested in sponsoring? Drop an email to sponsor@stumptownsyndicate.org.

Where

BarCamp Portland will take place at the First Unitarian Church’s Eliot Center (1226 SW Salmon St)

When

The activities begin on Friday, May 20th, at 6:30pm. Come hang out and socialize with other participants at the Eliot Center until 9pm.

Saturday the doors will open at 9am which allows for plenty of time to grab a pastry with some coffee and chat before the unconference kicks off. At 10am there will be a short welcome and introduction. Then participants can propose their sessions and put them up on the schedule board. We’ll have until 9pm Saturday to give presentations, socialize, and brainstorm ideas for BarCamp 6.

Schedule

Friday, May 20th

6:30pm – 9pm – Socializing

Saturday, May 21st

9am:  Registration & Mingling
10am:  Kick-off & Scheduling
11am:  Session 1
12pm:  Session 2
1pm:  Lunch
2:30pm:  Session 3
3:30pm:  Session 4
4:30pm:  Break
5pm:  Session 5
6pm:  Wrap-up
7pm:  More Sessions & Mingling
9pm:  Clean-up

Sessions

There are seven rooms for unconference sessions. There will be two rooms with projectors available. If you would like to use one for your session, just be sure to post your session to one of those rooms.

Although sessions are usually 45-minutes, longer sessions may be proposed. If a session needs to be extended there is plenty of space available for a conversation or presentation to move to if another session needs to get started.

Lunch

Lunch on Saturday is being sponsored by BarCamp Tour and we’ll be serving delicious Lebanese food from Nicholas Restaurant. There will be plenty of vegetarian and vegan food to go around.

Haven’t RSVP’d yet?

There’s still time, go do it now.

• Program an Arduino-based robot together using an easy graphical language.
• Record a song together.
• Build interactive cartoons with friendly programs like Scratch or Alice.
• Play a silly physics-based game like Numpty Physics
• Anything else you want to bring along and share

Bring your enthusiasm (and a laptop if you’ve got one).  We can’t wait to see you and your families at BarCamp! Don’t forget to RSVP if you haven’t already.

Please RSVP now if you haven’t already. We really need to get a general idea of how many people will be attending, so we can plan accordingly.

Want to know more? Read on!

If you haven’t been to BarCamp in Portland before, here’s the skinny:  BarCamp is an unconference. The location is set up ahead of time; participants gather in the morning and schedule sessions. Active participation is encouraged throughout — sessions are discussions rather than lectures.  Powerpoint slides and scripted presentations are discouraged. Come ready to find out more about your favorite topic, and share your knowledge with other geeks.

Unlike many technical conferences, BarCamp isn’t focused on a specific topic. Instead, people in the technical community come together and talk about whatever interests them. Even though the schedule isn’t set ahead of time, some popular activities tend to appear at every Portland BarCamp:

• Werewolf games
• Technology and bicycles
• Social networking (virtual and physical!)
• Novel applications of new technology
• Low-level and high-level programming
• Textiles
• Meeting new people and planning new *camps

We have many great tips for getting the most out of BarCamp Portland 5.

Know all about BarCamp Portland? Here’s what’s new this year:

This year we’re part of Barcamp Tour (background), which will provide some take-home souvenirs for participants, plus we’ll be giving away books from O’Reilly. So, don’t forget to bring something with you to take home goodies in!

How is this all possible?

Mostly due to people like you — your employers sponsor us; you create the sessions and the discussion that makes our community vibrant and keeps it growing; and you help us run these entirely volunteer-staffed events. (It’s not too late to help out! On-site volunteers are still needed.)

Thanks especially to our already-committed sponsors:

• BarCamp Tour
• ShopIgniter
• Open Sourcery
• O’Reilly Media
• Widmer Brothers Brewery

Sponsorships (Corporate and Individual) are still available — help us feed an army of hungry geeks! Email sponsor@legionoftech.org to learn more.

Thanks for participating in BarCamp Portland. We’ll be posting more great information at barcampportland.org in the days leading up to the event, so make sure to check that out.

See you at BarCamp!

If you or someone you know works for a company that would like to contribute financially to the event by sponsoring contact us at sponsor@legionoftech.org.

For everyone who’s unemployed, underemployed, or just likes to help, we’ve got the job for you! From marketing and web design to food donation solicitation to day-of beer and food service, there’s plenty to be done. A free event this excellent only happens when people like you get involved in making it happen. Plus, how often do you get a chance to work an event where all the attendees are interesting and you get fed for free?

Our most urgent current needs are a graphic designer to help update the barcampportland.org site, and design fliers and sponsorship request materials–if you can help with that, email us now!

Our first volunteer meeting, during which you’ll get first pick at the most popular volunteer jobs, is next Monday, March 21st at 6:30pm (calagator link). We’ll meet up over free pizza and beer at the Lucky Lab Tap Room on North (not Northeast) Killingsworth at Concord to discuss how we can make this Barcamp even more awesome than the previous 4.

If you can’t make it, don’t worry. There will be other meetings, so please subscribe to the Barcamp Portland planning google group to stay on top of other meeting dates and put your effort where your mouth is, as we announce volunteer needs.

Please join us to be part of the discussion and most importantly, part of the event!

Thanks!