Two Conferences, One Week

In case you have been living under a rock, Orlando had it’s first BarCamp this past Sunday. Some may claim that Orlando is too small to have a decent tech-sector; BarCamp threw that mentality out of the window. In a hip restaurant called Taste, 170 of Orlando’s finest artists, programmers, and entrepreneurs gathered to share their collective knowledge with one another. What’s more is that the whole event was completely free of charge.

I’ve been to too many conferences to count. BarCamp Orlando was my first unconference. Although the other more expensive conferences may be heavily funded, better organized, and have big superheros fly in from all parts of the world — we did this one all by ourselves. Everyone involved in making BarCamp Orlando happen was someone local. The talks were top-notch. The music was awesome. The drinks were amazing. But the best thing of all was being around so many like-minded geeks.

And that’s not all. Blog Orlando hasn’t even happened yet.

Coming up this Friday will be yet another unconference. Yes, our little city isn’t so little anymore. Starting Thursday night, the attendees will be gathering at Universal City Walk for an informal meet-up to have some fun and to get acquainted with one another. Friday morning begins the actual conference. They have four concurrent tracks scheduled and I am only now figuring out which ones I am to attend. My rough agenda for Friday is:

7:45 AM - Register for the Event
8:15 AM - Welcome & Ground Rules
8:30 AM - Watch Shel Israel’s Keynote on Social Media and it’s affects on the world
9:40 AM - Watch Chris Scott’s Talk covering the basics of blogging
10:25 AM - Watch Connie Reece’s Talk on managing the vast amounts of digital information that pour into our daily lives
11:10 AM - Watch Alex Rudloff’s Talk on the local development scene here in Orlando
11:55 AM - Feed myself
1:30 PM - Watch Jeremy harrington’s Talk where he will be giving design tips to non-designers like myself
2:10 PM - Watch John Rife’s talk on Videoblogging
2:50 PM - Take a break and network a bit
3:05 PM - Watch Ryan Price’s talk on Podcasting
3:45 PM - Watch Mark Jaquith’s talk on search engine optimization
4:30 PM - Watch Chris Heuer’s closing session
6:00 PM - Drinks at Slingapours!

Saturday everyone will be off to Epcot, but I won’t be in attendance. I’ll be leading a group discussion on freelancing.

I’m really looking forward to finishing off this week by surrounding myself with the same people I started it on. If you think you’ll be in the area, come by on either Friday or Saturday!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 26th, 2007 at 8:44 pm and is filed under News, Personal Life. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

3 Responses to Two Conferences, One Week

Ryan Price:

On September 27th, 2007 at 12:54 pm #

Thanks for the props, Mike! See you in the tech track!

Alex Rudloff:

On September 30th, 2007 at 10:13 pm #

Man, what a great couple of weekends we’ve had down here.

Hope you enjoyed blogOrlando! I’ll be posting some thoughts on local orlando stuff sometime soon. I found a great possibility for the ‘photo walk’ idea someone (john frost, I think?) suggested, and will try to get an orlando blog roll/twitter roll going as well.

John Rife:

On October 8th, 2007 at 7:33 pm #

You live on in infamy. Wish we had crossed paths at the two events but better luck next time. Your reputation precedes you sir and I look forward to some collaborative mashing of media sometime in the near future.

Cheers.

Comments are closed. Sorry.

Love Mike G