Recently in barcamp Category

A bunch of us headed down to Kilkenny this morning for Creative Camp which was held in Kilkenny Castle.

In typical fashion I forgot:

• My camera
• Business cards
• Freebies to give to people

It was great to meetup with a number of people who I'd only dealt with electronically to date, as well as catching up with a few people I'd met at other events over the last couple of years.

Oddly enough quite a few people seem to have recognised me from the Playboy photos... I wonder why...

Since I forgot my camera I won't be able to post any photos until George, or one of the others, provides some.

(Note to self - putting the camera out the night before might have been a good idea)

The event was well attended and the organisers did a great job.

Where to next?

Just a reminder to people that BarCamp Belfast is on this weekend. I'd love to be going, but I am meant to be down in Cork for another (non-technical) event We'll be there in spirit anyway :)

BarCamp Dublin is set to take place in the Digital Hub on Saturday 21st April 2007. I was at the last two Irish barcamps in Cork and Waterford, so I'll be attending this one as well. As it's in Dublin I expect there should be a good turnout (not that there wasn't at the previous events...) At this point the schedule is stilll a bit "up in the air", but I expect it will develop closer to the date.

I started writing this yesterday evening, but then I got distracted .... Anybody who knows me will happily agree that I am not a morning person - not unless I've had enough caffeine to kill an ox! However yesterday morning I was up at 7 in order to drive down to Waterford for BarCamp Southeast. Since there were a few of the Blacknight team going down we had arranged wakeup calls, which after the previous night's shenanigans were probably a really good idea :) I picked up Keith shortly after 8am and we hit the road. I must say it was a lovely drive down, as there were hardly any cars on the road! I pity Keith, though, as I have an awful habit of chattering away incessantly ..... The directions we'd been supplied with were spot on, so we'd no issue in finding the venue and actually arrived earlier than we'd planned. (I'd had visions of driving aimlessly around Waterford for hours!) Coffee and pastries devoured the other delegates started to drift. There were plenty of familiar faces, such as Damien, Jon, Donncha, Keith B (not to be confused with Keith G), Berni, Conn, Laura, Grainne, Elly and plenty of others (Do you really want a list of names? :) ) The venue, which is nestled in the Waterford countryside, is beautifully equipped and there was wireless access throughout. The lineup of talks was overwhelming, but I did manage to get into a couple of them, as well as trying to learn to juggle. With my total lack of co-ordination that was no easy task, though I did sort of manage to juggle (more "sort of" than "manage"). The first talk I got to was on podcasting, while the second was on a slightly different topic - death and divorce in a digital world (which deserves a post of its own) After the last talk a bunch of us headed down to the Ramada Viking. Most of us were staying there that night, so it was simply a matter of booking in and dropping bags off in rooms etc., Over the past year or so I've stayed in a lot of hotels. They all seem to merge into one. The Ramada Viking's staff, however, were extremely helpful and the room was fantastic. I've stayed in a few of the supposedly "good" hotels in Dublin and been completely underwhelmed, whereas this time I paid a lot less and got fantastic service in charming surroundings. After a couple of beers in the hotel we all piled into the city for food (which we were sponsoring) and then back out to the hotel for beer and banter. Unlike the first barcamp I actually made it into my bed before dawn :)

I've been interested in the inner workings of podcasting for some time, though I still haven't actually got round to doing anything about it! In any case yesterday's BarCamp featured some really interesting people talking about cool stuff (not all of it was that geeky!). The first session that I made it into was given by two podcasters that I truly respect, Bernie Goldbach and Conn Ó Muíneacháin. Conn has been podcasting as gaeilge (the Irish language) for some time, while Bernie not only podcasts regularly, but has a wealth of experience in teaching other people to do it. The talk was a combination of talk with slides and practical workshop. Bernie kicked off by explaining what he was going to do ie. put together a podcast in about 20 minutes or so and then Conn gave us a load of really useful tips on getting started. What was fantastic about the talk was that they made it all seem so accessible and easy, so even my non-technical companion at the talk was able to follow the entire process with ease (at least I think she did!). Hopefully Conn's slides will be available soon, though I know he's having issues with his broadband On a sidenote I took a couple of photos that you can see here

I'll be heading down to Waterford early on Saturday morning. My only issue will be finding the actual venue, as I'm not that familiar with Waterford. Elly pointed me in the right direction for hotels, so at least I've got that bit sorted out. It should be an interesting day and hopefully a fun night :)