#Shropcamp Beyond Brilliant
You know you’ve been to a truly extraordinary event when even before you wake up properly the following morning it’s right there – front of brain – and you’re still buzzing about it. Well that was #Shropcamp for me.
I was writing these first few blog lines in my head before I’d even opened my eyes. I knew I had experienced something special. A bit like a really ace party but without the hangover and the blurry recollections wafting in throughout the day.
This was a participation party and the recollections were crystal clear – banging and crashing about in my head – leaping about, clamouring for my attention all at once like a roomful of excited toddlers demanding a biscuit/wee/story NOW.
‘Think about me’, ‘think about me’ shouted disruption. ‘Hey! Jools! Hahaha…Lego Hair Lady’, hollered my brain, laughingly recalling @benjionthetrain’s storytelling session. ‘Oooh, ooh micro participation idea here’. It jumps up and down waving a big fat virtual guerrilla tactic in my eyelids. Jeez, it’s noisy here in my head this morning.
Yes, that’s why #Shropcamp was such a special event. An avalanche of inspiration and inspiring people was heaped upon me and I have spent today compartmentalising the chaos in my brain; working out what I can do, who I can do it with, when I can fit it all in.
I’ll leave you to read other blogs explaining the actual mechanics of how the day was run. There have been a couple of good ones and you’ll find them on the #Shropcamp Twitter feed. For me, it was the unconventional format that first grabbed my attention – well that and the core theme of how social media and open data can drive participation. An unconference is just like a conference in many ways. You know, the usual breakout sessions, choosing your workshop but wishing you could split yourself into three, lunch and networking malarkey.
But it’s the ‘un’ bit that’s neat. The ‘un’ bit appealed to the nihilist in me. No set agenda here, oh no. The people set the agenda on the day. We take the conversation where we want it to go. We shut up the man who is talking too much (rather too brutally in one case), we discuss, debate, disagree, defer, disperse, defragment our brains and congregate again to do all the D words once more in a different room, or maybe the same.
There is a certain energy created in a room full of largely like-minded folk. What I most enjoyed was the great diversity of the participants – public sector, private sector, third sector, volunteers, employed, self employed, unemployed, techy geeks, early adopters, thought leaders, happy followers. That was very ‘un’.
As wonderful a day as it was there is, inevitably given the format’s unpredictable fluidity, room for improvement. I like go with the flow. But I’d also have liked to dip into the pool where the flow flowed into and grabbed what was in there. But that’s an exciting prospect for next time. As Penval’s Paul Nash might say… “hold that thought.”
I would liked to have seen a stronger (certainly more audible) plenary session at the close, maybe some outcomes shared at the top of the day and a delegate attendance list with contact details. I just didn’t get to so many people to whom I wanted to reach out. But perhaps this is me being too un ‘un’.
Big shout out to Ben Proctor at Likeaword for staging the event and of course, to the #Shropcamp sponsors MoreOpen, Penval and Beyond Brilliance with due nod to UKITA and all the workshop facilitators. It was, for me at least, beyond brilliant indeed.
Blogging mostly on things social, political and reputational.
