BarCampDC3
16 November, 2009
One of the cool things about BarCamp is that you tend to find out about startups and people before they are big. Though I usually prefer 2-day camps, I made an exception for this one as it gave me a reason to go to the Air & Space Museum for the first time since middle school.
The day started with introductions and session proposals which was pretty cool so that no one felt like a total stranger. I proposed a postmortem on developing for Google Wave. Unfortunately some folks misunderstood my use of postmortem as a declaration that Google Wave was dead. I even had to correct a couple of folks who came up to me later and said "I agree that Wave is dead..." I guess it's hard to gauge that sort of thing when you live in GOOG's backyard. It never entered my mind that it could've been read that way.
There were lots of smart people there, I just wish I weren't so jet-lagged or I would have conversed more. The night before I jumped on a flight at 10:10P MV time and via Philly, I was in DC 8 hrs later. The transcon was only enough for a quick nap (4hrs) and I needed much coffee to make it through my session. It was a mix of general Google Wave/gadget vs. robot stuff and a bit about Ribbit. I was really glad to see a session on Groovy/Grails... in DC of all places, the epitome of button-down conservatism (well when it comes to software at least ;-) ) At about 3P, I hit my wall and had to crash. Unfortunately I wasn't back up in time to make it to the afterparty, maybe next time.
My VirginMobile Broadband2Go card saved the day once again as the venue had flaky wifi. It was the basement of the MLK Library which had less coverage than the above ground floors. It was also the one spot in the city where all T-Mo phones had problems but AT&T worked like a dream.
