Barcamp Hamburg 08: Diaries of a Barcamp virgin

As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, I attended Barcamp Hamburg this weekend, which was my first Barcamp.

As a first impression of the Barcamp format, beyond the successful layout and organization, I’d have to say that this was one of the best networking events I’ve been to. I’ve got a stock pile of random business cards on my desk and had a chance to meet a lot of interesting people and encounter interesting opinions.

I really enjoyed Sven’s Cat-content session as well as Florian Bailey’s Usability session. It seems that usability was a “hot topic” throughout the weekend, which perhaps serves to indicate a widening understanding of it’s importance in user interfaces. This means a lot about the future of “web 2.0″ and where we’re going to see the web in a few years time, as the bar for web-literacy keeps getting lower.

One of the interesting incidences of the weekend came in the form of T-Mobile’s crew presenting the G1 Google Phone (liveblogging by Peter Bihr) and forgetting that a crowd of barcampers is not only tough, but also comprised of heavily discerning critics. The tension on stage ended up being so thick, you could have cut it with a knife.

I’ll surely visit Barcamp Hamburg again next year. It really was a lot of fun and I’ll look forward to presenting a session myself. Thanks again to the organizers and to everyone involved.

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