Adapting BarCamp to Skepticism
From SkeptiCamp
With hundreds of events around the world since its inception in 2005, BarCamp has torn down the barriers to having events where few were possible before. By distributing the organizing effort among many, keeping costs low, relying on local sponsors, and drawing its content from one's local and regional community, the BarCamp model places substantive and fun events within reach of informal groups everywhere.
BarCamp has grown beyond the technology sector into many other domains. You can find PhotoCamps that bring together amateur and professional photographers and Podcamps that serve as a major meetup for podcasters, all coming together to share their knowledge and experience with others. The BarCamp model is even being employed to explore innovations in banking and finance as well as public policy.
BarCamps diverge dramatically from the formal lecture-oriented conferences to which we skeptics are accustomed. They are intense events with discussions, demos and interaction from participants. Anyone with something to contribute or a desire to learn is welcome and invited to join.
[edit] Rethinking the conference
Organizing a conference based on the traditional model has always proven to be a demanding effort that involves significant financial risk.
Speakers require transport and lodging, even if they waive their fees. A venue must be secured along with catering services to feed everyone. To counter these expenses you build a promotional campaign to attract attendees. In the end you hope for a turnout where the registration fees will allow you to at least recoup your costs.
That our conferences have been few and far between should come as no surprise. This burden of organizing places them well out of reach of most of our skeptic groups, particularly our informal groups in small-to-medium sized metro areas.
We do have conferences, however, such as The Amazing Meeting in Las Vegas whose attendance has been steadily growing since its inception. However, events as these are out of the reach of most skeptics. Few of us can afford the costs of travel and time off from family and work. The demands and distractions of life place traveling to a remote skeptic conference far down the our list of priorities, particularly for that of the casual skeptic.
As a result, if the event is not local or at least regional, you're simply not going to attend and benefit from the experiences that a conference can gain you.
SkeptiCamp is an attempt to tear down the barriers to organizing conferences, placing them within reach of even our informal groups -- to bring them to the casual skeptic.
To get there, we build upon a wildly-successful conference format called "BarCamp" that expands our idea of what a conference can be.
[edit] Introducing BarCamp
Though SkeptiCamp is young, it builds squarely on the BarCamp conference format which has seen hundreds of events (possibly over a thousand) since its inception in 2005. As a result, most of the hard problems of organizing events using this model have been solved and can serve as a reliable guide in organizing your own SkeptiCamp event.
Of course, differences exist between the technology and skeptic communities that may merit a different approach in certain narrow cases, but generally speaking, following the BarCamp model will guarantee better results than an improvised approach to organizing.
The BarCamp (and SkeptiCamp) conference model focuses on lowering the barriers to having events, allowing events to occur in places where few or none were possible before. BarCamp accomplishes this in several ways.
- It distributes the organizational effort amongst many people, allowing many to contribute in small ways that can fit into their busy lives.
- It has developed a set of practices which dramatically reduce the burden of having an event. The notable distinction between a SkeptiCamp and a traditional skeptic conference is that the content is drawn from the community itself, inviting everyone to do a short talk on a topic that drives their passion for science and skepticism.
- It reduces the financial burden of events by lowering costs and relying on sponsors for the venue, food and swag like t-shirts.
As BarCamp is about sharing knowledge among technology hobbyists and professionals, SkeptiCamp is about sharing knowledge within communities of skeptics. That extends to organizing events as well, where the key to a successful event is to learn from the experience of other organizers. In turn, we ask that you share your experiences (both good and bad) with others on the What Went Right and What Went Wrong pages.
[edit] External links
- Raising Our Game - an October 2008 essay by Reed Esau outlining a rationale for participant-driven open skeptic events like SkeptiCamp (requires PDF reader)
 |
|  |