I attended the Seattle RE BarCamp earlier this week and while it was organized well attended it seemed to be lacking something.

The something it seemed to be lacking was the free sharing of ideas in both directions. What I attended felt more like a tradeshow and less like the grassroots events that RE BarCamps have been in the past. When I attended the Seattle RE BarCamp in February of this year. (Wow, does that seem like forever!) it was this highly energized grassroots event where people were forming little groups and talking about something very specific and then moving along to another conversation. There were presentations and they were good but the energy was about the common man (agent) taking charge of their business via Web 2.0 and seeing results from their efforts.

This past weeks event was held in a large building that made conversation difficult due to the accoustics. It was a great building with a fantastic location but it might not of been the right building for this type of event. The topics seemed watered down and from the top down too. It was like listening to a vendor sell their service or product it was not like sharing of ideas.

Have other RE BarCamps experienced the same transformation? Such a beautiful idea that I really do not want to see become just another tradeshow. In this industry we have enough tradeshows. We need more opportunities to get together and talk about what is working and what is not working. Without it being sponsored by someone. I realize that without sponsorships the events would not happen. Perhaps we can figure out a way to have the sponsors help finance but without having booths at the events? The Tee shirts were great. My son wears mine from the 1st. Seattle camp all the time. (it's a bit small for me) He is always asked who is that? and someone is pointing at a name on the shirt. It's been a conversation starter many times. How about selling sponsorships buying Tee Shirts and providing a website that the vendors can link to? That way they could offer their sales pitch and we could choose to visit. That way we can concentrate on what makes RE BarCamps such a wonderful event.

The freeflowing sharing of ideas by those that want to teach for those that want to learn.

By no means are my comments meant as insults to the many people who worked very hard to create this event. Thank you for your efforts. The comments are here to open a dialog about how to keep the events from becoming just like every other event out there.

I have also written more about my observations on Bloodhound Blog if you are interested you can read my other post by following this link.