dailypixel

BarCamp Ottawa Wrap-Up

What an incredible day for the tech/web/geek community in Ottawa. Alec Saunders deserves an immense applause for taking the initiative and making this event happen.

I had the opportunity to chat with some incredible people. David Peralty who is always fun to be around was there. Jonathan Snook, a true CSS/design guru gave us a sneak peek of his new site's design which is scheduled for launch as part of the May 1st - CSS Reboot. Derek Featherstone, a well-traveled accessibility consultant was lots of fun to talk to, and as it turns out Jonathan, Derek and I all have 2-year old sons. Some other terrific people I met at BarCamp Ottawa; Ryan Lowe, Chris Nolan, Gavin McKenzie, Ben Houston, Scott Lake and many more.

Kudos to Derek and Jonathan for taking matters into their own hands and scheduling a session on 'Blogging in Ottawa'. Everybody participated and the discussion was really worthwhile because the overwhelming feeling and consensus from everyone in attendance was that we need to build on the momentum of BarCamp and use it as an impetus to get together more often. Perhaps with a few email exchanges in the coming days we can get a group of us together for a regular Meetup. I will certainly do what I can to help make it happen.

Most BarCamps aren't specifically about the 'sessions' and are more about gathering and fostering a sense of community, and BarCamp Ottawa was no exception. The sessions were a mixed bag of topics, some presentations were quite rough around the edges, but almost all of the ones I attended no matter the quality of presentation sparked great discussion and that's the most important thing.

A great event, with great people - BarCamp Ottawa by any measure was a huge success.

TAGS: barcampottawa, conferences
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