DC 2.0 The State of Web 2.0 Event
Dion Hinchcliffe captured some great pictures at the DC 2.0 event last night, which was our first get together.
Here's the poster, showing the hosts -- Dion, Jonathan Aberman of Amplifier Venture Partners, and me (Ken Yarmosh was out of town, although one of the organizers) -- and the various companies presenting: Blogdigger, CollectiveX, Near-Time, SMBLive, x:posted, and ZiWiki. We were hosted by Mintz Levin, who provided a wonderful facility.
Here's Greg Narain, of SyncPeople, who demoed x:posted, about which I wrote last week.
We all had a great time, the demos were great (I will be posting about those over the next few days), and everyone is excited that the DC Web 2.0 community has found a common ground where we can come together. We filled the room with 50+ people, and we had to turn awy a few latecomer companies who wanted to demo. We are already planning a full day event for late May or early June, probably a fusion of 'BarCamp' morning, a more traditional conference style afternoon, and an evening cocktail party. More to follow right away!
Congrats on making this event a big success. Would be glad to help you with this as it proceeds forward if you want to talk about it more. Generally speaking, the experience of other open space events leads me to believe that the format you have proposed is perhaps backwards.
If you really want the day to be successfull, our work through BrainJams shows that you need social interaction first via mapping (as Lee Felsenstein references the exchange of secondary information), then a traditional conference track and then, with the understanding of who is in the room, and what the focus of the day is, the open space portion can produce real value after that.
In fact, conferences like MeshForum and the Internet Identity Workshop produce 1.5-2 days of single track conference and then move to the last day being an open space day.
Posted by: Chris Heuer | March 16, 2006 at 10:09 AM
Hey Stowe -- looks like a good time. You might be interested in pitching in on Barcamp DC, eh?
Posted by: Chris Messina | March 16, 2006 at 02:43 PM
With all due respect Chris, I think this worked quite well, especially considering the turn out compared to BrainJams DC. From what Stowe reported, there were more people at the DC 2.0 event (which I missed due to a speaking engagement / conference). That's not to say BrainJams DC was a bust, I just think this format reasonated with folks, especially considering the various reports I'm reading around the blogosphere.
Posted by: Ken Yarmosh | March 16, 2006 at 04:56 PM
Ken - I think you misunderstood - I thought I was explicit in saying the format you have proposed (ie for future events) was perhaps backwards given what I have learned from direct experience and the experience of other events. I would hope you would be better able to take a suggestion as a suggestion, but if you don't want any real dialogus with potential community members, I understand and will bow out of the discussion.
As I said earlier, Congrats on making the event a big success.
Posted by: Chris Heuer | March 17, 2006 at 11:56 AM
Chris H...definitely interested in hearing and using feedback, as we have done to this point. Please continue to share your insights and be involved - we value your thoughts.
Posted by: Ken Yarmosh | March 19, 2006 at 02:27 PM