Sessions at BarCampMilwaukee

Session ideas was one of the discussion topics at the second planning meeting for BarCampMilwaukee.

The second planning meeting was held today, 20 August 2006, at Bucketworks in downtown Milwaukee during the regular Fireseed meeting. Eleven people showed up for the meeting, six of whom had not been at the first meeting two weeks ago. Thanks to everyone who showed up and is taking an active part in doing the prep work for BarCampMilwaukee! Check the Current Events page to find out when the next planning meeting will be.

The main purpose for the planning meeting was to discuss the basics of BarCampMilwaukee such as, should there be a limit on number of participants, what equipment is needed, what food should be planned for, etc. That discussion was held, although there are still lots of logistics to discuss further and get figured out. But some of the more lively discussion centered around how the ideal 'barcamp atmosphere' can be encouraged and facilitated, and a various sessions that would/will be fun to participate in.

One session idea endorsed by numerous people at the meeting was to develop a patent for submission to the USPTO. This would be a real patent designed to meet the normal patent criteria and would be a patent application with a high expectation of having the patent for it issued. A large number of BarCampMilwaukee participants would contribute to the the patent during the session(s) and over the course of the two day event. All those who participate in the development of the patent would then be listed as co-authors of the patent. One session could be to develop an idea which has a very high probability of receiving a patent, as determined by a couple patent attorneys and other BarCampMilwaukee participants who are familiar with the patent system. Another session could be to brainstorm lots of ideas to patent, and take the top couple ideas to subsequent sessions for development of all the patent application materials.

A session idea discussed with Yoda on the way back to Oshkosh/Appleton after the meeting was one focused around Real-time Google Earth. It was almost inconceivable ten years ago that anyone anywhere on earth could display on a computer an aerial photograph of any spot on the earth. Extrapolating the Google Earth model forward a year, or five or ten years, the question becomes: Will there be high-resolution real-time aerial video available to John Doe via the internet, i.e. Real-time Google Earth? The challenge regarding this potential session for BarCampMilwaukee is how to get knowledgeable people (government policy, satellite technology, etc) to the event so the session discussion is more than just uninformed personal opinions about what technology is required to enable Real-time Google Earth and what political, military and sociological constraints will play into whether such technology appears on our screens.

Other intriguing session topics were discussed, but the real need for BarCampMilwaukee at this point is not to come up with cool topics. The more important challenge is to make sure lots of people passionate about technology find out about the event. If you know some of those people, and they have an area of expertise and depth of knowledge they'll share, let them know about BarCampMilwaukee, get them to register as a Camper, and make sure they sign up to lead a Session!

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