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UN-CONFERENCE
The Blog Un-conference held at Tidel Park, was a resounding success for a first time event…
Sudhir Syal
Ever been to a conference, and waited eagerly for the breaks only so that you could have that stimulating one-on-one conversation with one of the participants? Ever thought to yourself at the end of the conference, ’That conversation was the most memorable part of the last 3 hours’? The organisers of BlogCamp 2006 have probably had some very similar experiences, inspired by which, their initiative of bringing bloggers from across India and the world together was not to ’conference’ but contrarily as they would put it, to ’un-conference’.
And true to the spirit of ’un-conferencing’, there was no podium or stage, no imaginary wall between the speaker and the audience, instead an open forum, which encouraged a maelstrom of discussion and mostly productive interaction. The sessions themselves, spread over two conference rooms, had an impressive line-up of speakers touching upon various topics ranging from high-end tech subjects such as Podcasting and Video Blogging to topics as basic as ‘How to get more people to read your blog.’
One of the first speakers who presented his views at the event was technologist Atul Chitnis (F0SS.IN), one of the oldest bloggers in the country who spoke of his blogging journey over the last decade. Peter Griffin of the World Wide Help Group later shared his views on Collaborative and disaster blogging, elaborating on how his group helped in plugging the information gap during various disasters such as the tsunami and the Mumbai floods. One of the major highlights of the event was the session by former test cricketer Sunil Gavaskar. During the session, Gavaskar spoke of his use of Podcasting during his commentary, apart from his plans to set up his own cricket blog in the coming months.
Chennai , being the hub of blogging in the country saw many of its most prominent bloggers attend the event. Bloggers from Chennai maintain blogs of different genres ranging from humour to tech to other blogs providing specialised information catering to niche audiences. Take for instance Varun Krishnan, who has been maintaining his blog fonearena.com for over a year now. He tells us, "When I wanted to buy a new mobile phone in March last year, I found that there was no website which catalogued the specs of all the mobile phones available in the market. My website intends to fill just that gap." Or Sriram V Iyer, who along with his co-composer Srividya Sankararaman, maintains e-Swara. one of India’s only music blogs, showcasing their compositions.
A fitting finale to the ’un-conference’ was a quiz by popular Chennai Quizzer Vinod G and his team, which encouraged great audience participation. Though the un-conference module did have some encumbrances, with some sessions lacking depth and order, everyone agreed that Blog Camp 2006 was all in all a resounding success. Kiruba Shankar, Chief organiser and the man synonymous with all that is blogging said at the end of the event, "This event was more about taking blogging to the next level. Be it live blogging, Podcasting or Video Blogging, we saw all of it play out here over the last two days. With over 250 people attending the event on each day, bloggers attending from across the world and tremendous support from our sponsors, there really isn’t too much more I could have asked for!" Judging by the overwhelming response, one cant help but look forward to Blog Camp 2007.
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