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What is Webcamp?
Webcamp Montreal is a user generated conference about the web. The latest edition was on May 14th 2008. It was started by was scheduled the same day as in november 2007. It can easily be defined as the off-Webcom event: the schedule is flexible, the discussion is open, the content provided by participants, thers is no salespitch as conferences and you can expect a lot of different topics covered. But what I really like about this camp is the fact that it’s neither the topics covered nor the presentations done that define the camp but surely more the participants. So the best way to talk about Webcamp#01 might be to present some of the people who attend the event.

Who is Webcamp?
Here’s a partial list of the people involved in the definition of this day (some spent the whole day, others came in order to discuss a specific topic and stayed few minutes) (was also speaking at Webcom), , , , , , , , , , , , , and myself (please feel free to contribute to the list if you know people that I forgot). There is also , that way we will try to leave usefull ressources from the event.

I feel that I should write something about my day at webcamp (the unconference) but I don’t know what… The discussions were pretty intense and everything but structured. It was more than just brainstorming on what the web industry could be, it was a never-ending exchange of data, feelings, impressions, ideas and concepts. , describes it as a ‘‘ salon de thé de la culture internet, philosophie moderne du réseau ou pragmatisme des communautés… tout ça ! ’’. Considering that we’ve touch a lot of different topics, here’s my thought on one of them:

On the use of wikis

Is the use of appropriate for business? How could we find a way to make sure that the wiki will work? According to me, the difficulty to implement a successful wiki into a specific environment is due to the fact that we are not educated (think about elementary school and high school) to be directly involved into projects (we are taught to listen carefully and to raise our hand if any questions). The lack of participation from the people in editing articles, restructuring texts (what we call collaboration) is responsible of the failure of what I think could be one of the greatest tool that any organization could have. Candid question: anyway that we could reverse the 90% / ?

for the future of webcamp

Webcamp Montreal is a group of webheads, passionate individual working in the web industry. Thanks to Sylvain Carle and the Webcom organisation for making this first meeting successful. We plan to make webcamp a recurring event, next one should be around February, in the meantime, there is a created, still empty, but there. So feel free to join the event ! Thanks also to everyone who showed up for the day or for a moment, it was appreciated (randomly : Seb Paquet, Patrick Desmarais, Sylvain Carle, Jean-Marc Langevin, Mitch Joel, Nicolas Cossette, Bruno Boutot, Patrick Tanguay, Martin Lessard, Marc Laporte, and many others that I haven’t taken their names).

1. for the format: It is going to be an . I have to quote on this ‘’pour tous ceux qui trouvent que les conférences dans les grandes salles sont “trop conceptuelles et pas assez appliquées”.’’

2. for the discussions: . (1)Social medias: “white hat social hacking” ou “social media optimization”. (2) L’identité numérique : les standards émergents et la pratique actuelle (3) Le web Mobile : “application web” et “ergonomie + use cases” (4) du contenu : ou pourquoi nous sommes à l’ère de “l’anti-portail”.

3. for the opportunities: we did this informal and although the main objective was to educate students about the possibilities of Internet marketing, we exited the conference with a lot of people interested in our work and (few days after) another player(someone from the audience) was joining us on our marketing team. So it’s always good to exchange and network with as many as possible, we never what will happen.

4. for the learning and the knowledge: it is more about discussions and proactive debates. Chances to talk to people into the industry: often people ahead in what they are doing in comparison of people in the other room…

5. to optimize my ROI: 40$ the day, includes a lunch

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