Here is the long short, or should I say short long?
IT WAS AWESOME.
I met many awesome people doing awesome things.
I learned a bunch, thought about a bunch more.
Connected with people who I knew but had never met.
Met people who I should connect with, but never knew.
Thought of new things to do.
Got virtual deja vus a couple times. (sweet)
Led two sessions.
Created momentum & change.
Ran into some old friends.
Saw a new British Social Media movie debut.
Handed out hundreds of “gov 2.0 camp” log hack stickers.
Ate a yummy bagel.
Hugged a few people who need hugs.
Got no sleep & tired feet.
Thought about the future.
Coined a new term (like we really needed another one)
Learned that self organization works as a whole, but incurs certain challenges.
Going to sleep for another day, forget Monday (it was already gone by Thursday)
Helped us take a step in the right direction.
We need more of this, let’s do it again soon & get more people involved.
@zerostrategist
I agree. The whole event was awesome. I too met some great people (both new and others from my virtual world). GovLoop made some awesome t-shirts (Thanks Scott), and the British film was eye-opening to me.
I look forward to continuing on this dicussion on GovLoop and other platforms.
Ate really good bagels.
Met bunch of cool people.
Heard WH New media
Met real-life avatars
Gave out some laynards
Dropped off extra food for nonprofit in Gov20Club name (1st charity deduction for it?)
And the time just slipped away…there were a bunch of people I still didnt meet and conversations I didnt join
What more can I add? I don’t know, but I’ll try:
– Listened to people way smarter than me (always a good thing)
– Met conference organizers in person
– Ran into an old colleague (Rod Beckstrom – former DHS cybersecurity czar)
– Was convinced to give Forge.mil presentation, even though I initially thought it didn’t fit. Glad I was wrong! 🙂
Thanks for a great event everyone!
Awesome that the extra food went to charity, many people are having a rough time with the economy.
I did think that we could have done a little better on consolidating more sessions. But then again, the same themes of subjects offered at different times, allowed for those conflicted on what to participate in have a chance later in the day.
Oops – I commented while signed into the Social Media Subcouncil account. So here’s my comment coming from my account. 🙂
Yep, that about sums it up. Nice!
Oh, also:
Learned that you *can*:
build an agenda on the fly in front of hundreds of people. Twice.
get hundreds of people to sing with you.
Andrea: as a rank novice at doing this, I have no doubt I could’ve done it better. But as with all this stuff, diving in is the best way to learn. 🙂
It’s a bit challenging, though, to combine, esp. when we still had some open slots and when session leads are standing in front of you telling you “no, that’s different.”
Jeffery:
I want to say that you did a great job & you are right, diving in is the best way to learn anything. For example “total immersion” it was the best way for me to learn Spanish. Many of us are new to the Barcamp style but we all jumped in with an open willingness to engage & learn. The most important things was that 85-90% of the stuff went right & it worked as a whole (at least from my perspective).
A side note – I honestly could not tell that you were a “newbie.” Before you mentioned in your comment I did not know. From your presence at the camp I thought you had already done a few…perhaps that is the best compliment. 🙂
I think the slots were tough because no matter what, someone is not going to get what they want & then as Andrea told me “the crowd can be fickle.” Thanks @immunity for reminding me, because success is not always what you think it is, it does not look it way you want it to…it just is what it is. I wanted more people in my sessions, but so what? It is not about me, it is about US. Bottom line – no one left my sessions, & they were engaged the whole time in meaningful conversation. It is not about the numbers, it is about the quality of connections & information shared + created.
I personally do not really care if mistakes were made (there we a few), as long as we all learn from them and get better! That is what social media & hopefully government 2.0 is all about – continuous improvement.