Great Explanation of “Bar Camp”

When I tell people I’m helping to plan an “RE Barcamp” it’s often followed by a blank look.    “Rebar? Is there a bar? Are you camping” is not an uncommon response.    In fact, I bet many attendees of RE Barcamp may not know where “BarCamp” comes from.   I came across this short and sweet definition when I was reading Brain Picking’s post on the ”Top 10 Contemporary Cross-Disiplinary Conferences” …for the record, Barcamp came in at second on the list.

Inspired by Tim O’Reilly’s famous invite-only hacker summit, Foo Camp, BarCamp borrowed from the hacker slang foobar to create a set of guidelines for an alternative, open-to-all, ad-hoc event around a common topic or theme that anyone can host anywhere. (These user-generated experiences are also sometimes called unconferences or non-conferences, after legendary eccentric curator Hans Ulrich Obrist’s experimental non-conference in Jülich, Germany, in the 90’s.)

A self-organizing community of diverse interests, BarCamp participants are also its presenters. Attendees spend the first part of each event brainstorming and voting for session subjects, and can then choose among the various breakout groups. As you might imagine, the quality of a BarCamp can vary considerably depending on who’s present — we’ve had mixed experiences, accordingly. But as the saying goes, you get what you pay for; and BarCamps are typically free.

RE Barcamps are for the most part based off this premise of open sharing and peer to peer learning where the participants are also the presenters with a “real estate theme”.  Topics can be anything real estate related and tend to have had a heavy emphasis on social media in the past.   With all that’s going on in our industry today and considering the Seattle event is following the Pacific Northwest Housing Summit, I won’t be a bit surprised if Seattle’s 2010 REBarCamp participants also decide to have discussions based on the new Good Faith Estimate/RESPA, HVCC or how to market distressed properties.   The great thing about REBC’s, in my opinion, is that we are not limited to any topics–we’re only limited by those attend and participate in the event and out of all of the REBC’s I’ve attended (5 or so?) I’ve always learned plenty! 

I’m really looking forward to this REBC Seattle 2010!

RE BarCamp Seattle 2010

Earlier today, I met with some local amazing folks from all fields in the real estate industry to share lunch and to start planning Seattle’s RE BarCamp for 2010.   We are in the early phases and we welcome all who wish to volunteer their time or dollars to contribute towards this grand unconference.   REBC is successful due to the participation of all.

Here’s what I can share with you right now… Seattle RE BarCamp is being planned for mid-March.   This event will be take place the day before the Pacific Northwest Real Estate Summit (a regional event being planned by WAMP and WAR).     We’re looking at REBC most likely taking place on March 15 or March 18.   Part of the issue is ironing out the details with the venue for both events.   As soon as we have more information, we will post it here.    

Keep in mind that REBC is not only about social media, it’s about what ever the participants/attendees wish to discuss.   The agenda is decided the morning of the event from those who show up!  If you want to learn about tips on negotiating a short sale–suggest the topic the day of the event.   This is peer to peer sharing and learning.

We will have this website being modified for the 2010 event soon.  (Please disregard the 2009 info for now…)

Our Twitter hashtag is #rebcsea.    Please spread the word!   We’d love you to save the dates (mid-March), tell all your RE friends…maybe volunteer and/or be a sponsor.

I’m very excited for both events and look forward to sharing more information soon!    And again–we welcome your participation!

Photo credit:  Natalie Danielson @clockhours