Getting offline to make sense of online

Cupcakes? Model train sets? Pizza, sushi, juggling and even unicycling?

What’s all this to do with geekery? Well at Barcamp Leeds, the digital business of the day came with its own brand of entertaining diversions.

Plenty of sessions in the now expected unconference format to delight those with an interest in coding, communication and collaboration in the digital world, but also the chance to meet up, catch up and cook up some plots and plans!

It was the first Leeds-based event I’ve attended, and the first Barcamp at which I’ve given a talk, so all new experiences here.

In brief some of the highlights in the sessions I attended;

* Check out www.tagwalk.com. Finding it hard to describe but think a delicious type service for Twitter. Journalistic uses which occurred to me during Tim Hastings’ session include collecting information about one particular person or subject and maybe a tool which could help when training journos on the usefulness of Twitter. Seemed a no-brainer for PR people concerned with brand reputation management too.

* Exciting new entertainments offering which will surely break out of Yorkshire in a bid for world domination – or at least beat a path down the M60 corridor. The lovely ladies behind this bribed us all with some baking too, and it worked! www.theculturevulture.co.uk is in part a recommendations site but also offers some experiences the average person is unlikely to get the opportunity to discover elsewhere. They are re-thinking what “culture” is in a landscape currently dominated by listings offerings. Fresh!

* I got a bit overheated thinking about all the possibilities of this experiment, www.ourcityourmusic.com. geo-locative music experiences. About to launch out of a university bunker somewhere, this is a competition winner which should prove a hit further afield. Atm, this is Leeds based for emerging artists and requires special handsets to explore – fun enough and worthwhile in itself, but it also got me thinking more about Adam Greenfield’s work on networking cities, archives of artists past explored by geo-tag, perhaps not just music, why not accessed through phones rather than a specific gadget?…..

And that’s what’s so great about events like Barcamps – they expose things that wouldn’t otherwise cross the radar. Whether it’s a student project being incubated within the safety of an academic institution or a seasoned business pro sharing some experience, these offline events give a quick adrenaline shot to the online practitioner.

Yes, there were sessions which quite honestly might as well have been delivered in Greek for all the understanding I could get, but perhaps that’s also got value in its own way. A reminder that there’s plenty going on which isn’t easily understood, that requires expertise and encouragement.

Outside of the formal sessions I had plenty of conversations about new ways of looking at news online, the inevitable moderation issue, the best way to organise these events, possibilities of collaborations down the M60 corridor or Yorkshire-wide or northern-wide – the world awaits!

In fact the only disappointing thing about the day for me was the complete lack of fellow news professionals attending, participating, engaging, or even reporting the event. If the search for new online models really is the holy grail, perhaps it would be worth following some of the pathfinders?

During my own talk about my recent work on blogs within a mainstream newspaper organisation, I made reference to the importance of participation in offline events in cementing community relationships – something confirmed for me by yesterday’s event.

All that remains is to say thanks to everyone for making me feel so welcome – I’m certainly looking forward to whatever happens next!

* There’s more Flickr pix
and a Qik from me tagged #bcleeds09 as well as plenty from everyone else. I’m looking for blog links and slideshares too so feel free to point me in the right direction via the comments below.