A brief history of Re BarCamp

April 19, 2009 by Todd Carpenter
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Kathleen Buckley on Sun, 19th Apr 2009 6:38 pm

I attended RE Bar Camp New York in January 2009 practically by accident. The experience has changed and ignited the way I practice real estate. Seeing the proliferation of bar camp in so many locales may reduce the number of folks who travel and thus result in less mixing of ideas? I’d love to go meet all my “virtual” friends who’ll be attending rebcphx for example, but hard to justify travel cost (to my dear husband, not to myself) when rebc will be coming to Boston in June.

P.S. I’m DOWN for REBC Cancun, seriously: I have a dream of selling real estate on the Mayan Riviera.

Dale Chumbley on Sun, 19th Apr 2009 11:23 pm

I know that the plan of RE BarCamp’s have been to keep the events free.

As one of the planners for RE BarCamp Portland, I wish that we could have charged a nominal $10 per person (I know we could have but we wanted to stay with the status quo). A simple $10 per person here in Portland would have covered the entire venue for 200 people plus lunch. This would lessen the need to get so many sponsors to make the event happen.

Another benefit in my opinion is it gives the attendee a little vested interest. They feel like they are contributing to it happening. Our WordCampPDX charged $10 last year and I didn’t even bat an eye at that cost. Felt like it was completely fair. I’ll guarantee I got FAR MORE than $10 value out of that day.

I’d love to hear what others think about this. Thanks for listening to my rant.

Brad Coy on Mon, 20th Apr 2009 11:54 am

Likes:

* Opportunity. I think we have just dipped into what could be done at RE barcamp. As things grow with this movement, there is the opportunity for anything creative to happen, pushing the boundaries of convention and coming up with themed barcamps and shifting the paradigm of the Real Estate learning experience.

* The grass roots effort it takes to put one together. It’s great to see some people who are really passionate to share a learning experience with like-minded people in a casual forum like this.

* The spontaneity of having anything happen. Some of the best sessions I’ve attended are the ones where I’ve walked away with a wealth of knowledge that could only be formed in a shared and open session. Here’s a great example of something different happening and I think there are examples of this taking place at every event.

* The non-corporate/non-stuffy feel of RE barcamp. It’s a very casual and relaxed and even fun vibe that is natural.

* Overall. I like that this has grown as wildly successful as it has. In the introduction to RE barcamp LA I shared that when we started this off in SF, I thought that maybe a small group of would show up and maybe, at best, we would do it again in 2009. That very evening, that thought completely changed with the feedback I heard. It seemed that almost instantly we had 3 or 4 individuals say that they were going to do this next. It’s been growing from event to event that way ever since into what is probably the first great example of an open social experiment in Real Estate collaboration.

Dislikes:

* The lack of having expectations from organizers, participants, and sponsors has allowed for the events to give way to a bit of the old conference type of feel. I really think some guidelines should be put in place so that people can create a real barcamp experience.

* Vendor stands and pitching. While there has not been a whole lot of this happening, but I think it’s a barcamp fail. At RE barcamp in LA someone had actually taken a position at the door of the main hall and was passing out flyers for his company. This goes along with expectations from the sponsors. Helping out with the event should not give you the opportunity to sell your wares or service. Join the dialogue and stop interupting it.

* The idea that this is a conference. It’s not. So stop saying that this is taking the place of one or the other. Conferences offer something entirely different.

* Conceptually, RE barcamp can be created with some space, chairs, and little to no money. Don’t let the idea that you have to create the next BIG one or need lot’s of cash to create one. You don’t need to have a happy hour and you don’t need any “rock stars” to show up. The proof is in the pudding. Take a look at some of the examples from the events listed on this blog. What’s happening in these more localized barcamps is some pretty exciting stuff.

Along the same lines: http://rebarcamp.com/?p=318

Andy Kaufman on Mon, 20th Apr 2009 12:09 pm

Great post Todd. Before I add my $.02, I just want to thank you for all your effort in building out the RE BarCamp website, you’ve done a wonderful job with it and we’re all appreciative of your continued effort!

I’ve been to every RE BarCamp except for Houston and honestly I’ve walked out of each one satisfied with my experience. One thing that helps is that I’m fairly vigilant about following the Law of Two Feet which states that:

If at any time during our time together you find yourself in any situation where you are neither learning nor contributing, use your two feet. Go to some other place where you may learn and contribute.

What I love about RE BarCamp:

Getting to meet people face to face and talk about about what we’re passionate about.

Seeing so many people leave the events energized about what they’ve learning and about the connections that they made.

The fact that no matter where I am, I can invite someone to attend a RE BarCamp and there most likely will be one coming up that they’d be able to attend.

The random moments that becomes a social markers for future interactions.

Participating in the evolution of the RE BarCamp movement and it’s subsequent evolution as a social object.

Being able to say “I told you so” . Before I announced the first event, I was told that it wouldn’t work. I did it anyway and look where we are today.

What I’d love to work on:

While I want to remain focused on keeping the events free, I hear what Dale’s saying and I do think that the financial model could be tweaked a bit in order to make things easier on the organizers.

One idea that I think might work would be to charge a nominal fee for lunch. I’d be happy to pay a few dollars more for an on-site lunch provided by the organizers in order to help defray other costs associated with the event. A side benefit of this would be that we could provide individual donors a chance to help contribute financially without having to commit to $250.

Another idea would be to increase the sponsorship limit to $500 or maybe even $1,000 and offer tiered sponsorship levels.

I don’t know what the exact solution is, but I’d like to continue this conversation.

Besides that, I’m in agreement with a majority of Brad’s comments and I’m looking forward to PHX and PDX this week!

cindy*staged4more on Mon, 20th Apr 2009 5:19 pm

I think barcamps are amazing (even though I’ve only been to SF last year and LA this April) and frankly for someone who is not a real estate agent (like me), it’s much easier to participate in.

I really like Dale’s point about everyone just pitch $10 in for venue and lunch, this way the organizers don’t have to work so hard to get sponsors.

I personally would love for barcamps to stay the way they are — “unconference” if you will. It’s much more relaxed, less stuffy and people who show up are already interested in these tech topics and you can just hang out and chat with people. For me the best part of barcamp is seeing people I’ve already seen around on Twitter or other social networks or seeing “old” friends I’ve made through social networks. That’s what essentially I think barcamps are about — the people, the community and freely share information/stimulating conversations.

As of organizers go, to deal with inexperience in planning, maybe we should think about compiling a Best Practice for future organizers who may not have a lot of experiences in event planning and still able to get help.

And my gravatar picture? I got it at Bar Camp LA! Where else can I get such cool photo???

Cheers,
Cindy

Ricardo Bueno on Mon, 20th Apr 2009 8:51 pm

After hosting REBCLA, here are some things I would have done differently:

- I wouldn’t have scheduled my event at a Hotel. It was very limiting and expensive. I mean heck, I found two sponsors to cater food and coffee but they weren’t permitted (the hotel wanted to charge 35/person for food even if I went with my own caterer). But I get it, it’s their business.
- I might charge more for Sponsorship (not a lot, just a little).
- I would eliminate the main stage. As much as I loved that Dakno came out and live-streamed the event, I think the main stage was unnecessary. The fact that it was being live-streamed put pressure on having more of a presentation/panel type session and that just didn’t feel right. Some of the best sessions happened in the break-out rooms wherein the attendees were having a full out discussion amongst one another rather than listening to a single presenter or two.
- I’d assign a techie to manage/ensure everything is taken care of for each of the rooms (projectors, screens, outlets, etc.). I put this in here because after a while I got tired of people asking me for an extension cord…
- I would be sure to introduce/open up the day with a clearer explanation of the logistics for the day (all in all, everyone played along, participated and had fun but we lost some heads in the group). I just think we could have done a better job opening up the day and setting some clearer expectations.
- Instead of having speakers/presenters bumrush the stage to take a time-slot in one of the breakout rooms, I’d organize each of the breakout rooms by a theme. This way, there’s less chaos as people shift from one room to another (everyone is a little more organized this way) and you can extend a session in a given breakout room if need be.
- I’d have a guest sign-in book of some sort. I couldn’t manage the registration area and be everywhere all at once and I would’ve liked a clearer picture of who came and went so a guest-book that everyone could sign would’ve have worked out well in my opinion.

Anyway, REBarcamp Los Angeles was great for a first time around (at least in my humble opinion). And I got a lot of great feedback from folks which indicated there’s definitely a growing set of passionate individuals who want to continue to learn and grow in a collaborative environment. If we make some of the changes noted above before part II, I think we’ll be in great shape.

On another note, I asked the attendees to give me some feedback on the day on the form here:
http://tinyurl.com/cx8cf2

I’ll pdf and publish the results within the next couple of days if it’s helpful…

Drew Meyers on Tue, 21st Apr 2009 9:53 am

Lots of great stuff in the comments already, but I’ll chime in here with a couple thoughts as well:
1) I’d hate to see re barcamp lose it’s “unconference” feel — that’s what makes it such a great experience. I think that starts with making sure there is no “selling” and that vendors aren’t running all the sessions. Banners are fine to give the sponsors some exposure at the event, but I am not favor of vendors setting up booths.
2) I don’t have any problem with organizers charging a lunch fee to help cover the costs.

Lastly, and I’m sure Andy will agree with me on this one, “half baked” should be a session at every Re Barcamp going forward Go TwitterHookers.com!

Chris on Fri, 15th May 2009 2:25 pm

Gonna put one on in Toronto – where to start?

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A brief history of Re BarCamp

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RE BarCamp San Francisco – July 12,2010

RE BarCamp Orange County – August 19

RE BarCamp Columbus – August 18th

RE BarCamp Orlando – August 25, 2010

RE BarCamp Raleigh Durham -Sept 10, 2010

RE BarCamp Rye – September 11, 2010

RE BarCamp San Mateo County – Sept 20, 2010

RE BarCamp New Hampshire – Oct 20

RE BarCamp Charlotte – May 6th, 2011

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