Losing My Tech Virginity @ #BarCampSTL

Learning new social media skills makes my head hurt. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, yada, yada, etc., who has time?

For me, it’s like going to the gym: just one more job. Plus, everytime you add something to your plate, you must eliminate something else, right? And if it’s not sleep, then…what?

Unfortunately, I am very curious about all this new stuff. So learning the *why* of social media has become a compulsion for me. And even though I read about it, try it out and sign up for teleseminars that promise to “explain everything in 3 simple steps” so I can “make $13,000 by tomorrow morning (in my underwear),” I’m still very slow on the uptake.

So I was intrigued to discover St. Louis’ first BarCamp. It looked like bloggers, developers and social media types were gathering for an informal, unscripted meetup. In fact, the name BarCamp is a derivative of FUBAR, a well known military expression (look it up yourself).

The event was billed as, “Let’s get a bunch of St. Louis geeks and friends together and do something.” I wasn’t quite sure how I would contribute anything of value to these early adopters. Alas, I thought, I’m only a B.I.T. (blogger in training) and not technical. And there were “rules”, which, frankly had me pretty intimidated: “No spectators, only participants.”

But after tweeting facilitators @ryankeeter and @tojosan and receiving their encouragent, I went (and dragged my completely clueless sister with me so I would be only the second-most clueless person in the room).

#BarCampSTL, as it’s now commemorated on Twitter for those who want to follow the stream of conversation about this event (I now know how to do this!!), was held at City Museum in the Cabin Inn bar. I’m almost certain there’s no rule commanding that a BarCamp must be held in a bar, but it was a cozy venue and quite ironic to be discussing new media in Daniel Boone’s son’s log cabin. But, I digress.

This is how speakers presented: You added your presentation topic to the whiteboard whereever there was an opening. The clock strikes the time, you speak. Your time’s up, the next person gets up to present.

After introducing myself around, I figured out what I could talk about, and decided to go for it. I would be the bridge between the technology and the business opportunity. Read a recap of my presentation. I got the only presentation slot left–the first one of the morning.

BarCampSTL was fascinating. I met @lolololori who blogs about everything St. Louis (even knowing where to go on Hampton Ave. for a drive-thru doggie washer); Jim Durbin @smheadhunter, the world’s only recruiter for social networking; @whereisciau who drove in from Kansas City to attend and gave an amazing introduction to e-textiles (picture the back of your jacket signaling a left turn with a blinking light as you get in the left lane on your bike) and Karen Goodman (@karenstl) who’s one of the new frontier of blogging real estate agents.

There were high-intensity presentations (the event was sponsored by Network Solutions) and we also learned about Fedora Linux (no clue but got a great button) and OAuth by @Mike_Austin. But there was also plenty of schmooze time where I got to chat with Aravind Kannan @netcitizen from Madras, who’s currently working for Maritz.

Twitter, which launched not even 2 years ago, already has more than 2 million subscribers to its free service. They’re anticipating 9 million in 2009. When Barack Obama, the first Twitterer to reach 100,000 followers (I have 91 today), gets elected using social media and actually says the word “website” in his first press conference, you can take it to the bank that new media is the future of business marketing.

Time we all lost our virginity to social media marketing technology tools.

Tagged as: bar camp, barcamp