I love living here in Silicon Valley. I’m surrounded by smart, passionate people who don’t feel they need permission to make a difference.

BarCampBlockCase in point was BarCampBlock this weekend–a spontaneous un-conference-style gathering of 900+ hackers and other valleyites sprawled across the streets of Palo Alto, as well as inside the offices of several host startups. The basic idea is that when we go to conferences and events, the major benefit is the chance to meet and talk with other like-minded people, so why do we need the conference at all? Just organize an open event where people will show up and figure out how to spend their time together.

BarCampBlock organizersIt was organized by a few people (mainly Chris Messina, Tara Hunt, and Tantek Çelik) in a short amount of time, and with essentially no budget. It was promoted purely by word of mouth and blogging, and yet not only was there an amazing turnout, nearly 100 companies stepped up to help show their support and sponsor the event. Even Plaxo kicked in a sponsorship, which was a no-brainer since they cleverly set the max contribution at $300 to prevent the possibility of an arms race. And then, like magic, people showed up, organized, and we had a productive and fun weekend figuring out the future.

I just have to stop and reflect on how unusual and awesome it is that events like this can and do take place here with relative ease here. It’s only possible because of the combination of (a) ambitious would-be organizers, (b) a community of people who care enough about what they’re doing to spend a perfectly good weekend networking and nerding with their cohort, and (c) a plethora of companies that care enough about being a part of the community to pool their resources and make events like this possible.

Social network portability sessionIt also requires the flat, meritocratic, egalitarian cultural norms of the area. The important people show up and hang out like everyone else; they’re not hard to find. In my own sphere of opening up the social web, the big deal recently was Brad Fitzpatrick’s (founder of LiveJournal, creator of OpenID, now at Google) new manifesto on how to do an end-run around uncooperative companies and get the ball rolling now. It had already spurred a hot conversation, and yet the next morning there he was (down from SF, mind you), talking to whomever was interested.

John McCrea engages in 'grass-roots marketing'We ended up hosting a session together on social network portability, and it was packed. It must have gone well, because the rest of the evening people kept coming up to me to express their shared passion for what we’re doing. In fact, enough people gave me their free drink tickets out of tribute that I couldn’t finish them all! Now that’s what I call “work hard, play hard”. 🙂

In a funny way, BarCamp shares the same spirit (and initial impetus) as Lunch 2.0–we’re all living here to be a part of this community, so let’s get together. The cost is small and readily obtainable, and the results of meeting up are never predictable but always valuable.

Anyway, congratz to the organizers, you did an amazing job! And congratz to us all for taking advantage of opportunities like this and not waiting to be told what to work on. As usual, there are plenty of photos from me and others.

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