Category: Community

Today I want to give you a tour of an unconference: an event where the attendees themselves set the agenda and discuss critical topics. The event we will look at is Book^2 Camp, a series of meetings where those in publishing and the book world gather to discuss the future of each. Through the next 35+ photos, I will take you through the event step-by-step. Let’s get started…

Welcome to Book Camp! When you walk in you see more than 150 people gathered into a meeting space. This event was held at New Work City, a coworking space near Canal Street in Manhattan:

As you will see throughout these images, the tone is very down to earth, community-minded, and DIY. This is where you create your name badge. As with any modern conference today, including your Twitter handle is often recommended:

This event was organized by Ami Greko and Chris Kubica (with assistance by Kat Meyer who couldn’t be at the event itself.) Book Camp always starts with Ami standing on furniture, welcoming the crowd, and instructing us on how the day works.

Ami explains that there are two rules to book camp: “The law of 2 feet,” in which you should feel free to move from one session to another if you don’t feel you are getting value out of it; and “Don’t be a d**k, which means a session organizer should not make anyone feel bad for choosing to leave a session.”

The key thing about an unconference is that there is no set agenda. This is the schedule when you arrive: nothing but empty time slots and room numbers.

The day is broken out into a series of sessions and breaks:

The attendees themselves suggest topics for discussions. Here, we go round the room (from left to right), and people raise their hands to pitch an idea for a session. Here Emily Williams suggests a session called “Who will keep the flame alive?” which I believe discussed the idea of who will promote the idea of reading and value of books in a world where bookstores and libraries are disappearing.

Kirsten McLean pitches a session that discussed key issues in publishing, cleverly titled “Magic Eight Ball.” You will notice that each session leader writes down their idea on a piece of paper.

Bethanne Patrick suggests a session:

Chris Kubica suggests a session:

As these sessions are pitched, they are added to “the big board” – assigning them to time slots and room numbers:

Another attendee pitching a session. It’s nice to star the day this way because it gets people used to speaking up so that 150 others can hear you:

The session is added to the board:

As the board fills up, another session is pitched:

Everything about the day is inherently social. It’s a tight space, so you are forced into close quarters with others, which often encourages lots of interaction:

The session pitches continue:

Katie Dunneback suggests a session:

Once all of the ideas are shared and the board is filled up, people get to review the day, and choose which sessions they want to attend. Four sessions run at once, and there are four time slots throughout the day. Each session is 50 minutes long.

The event had quite a few sponsors (listed later in this post), who helped provide copious amounts of food and beverage:

Here are two sessions in action (one in the very back, and the circle right up front.) As you can see, this is unlike most other conferences. This is “borrowed space,” and the organizers have to create distinct areas out of the existing offices.

While there is a session leader, the idea is that every session is truly a discussion. While one person may be leading the session, their role is to keep things on track, and frame the conversation, not overwhelm it.

Much like regular camp, Book Camp does include sitting on the floor and chatting:

But like a more formal conference, there are loads of details organizers need to attend to. This is one that is often overlooked by larger conferences: ensuring there are power outlets for attendees to plug their laptops and phones into. Power strips were snaked around the sessions:

There was one regular room available for sessions as well:

Because it is hard to gauge how many people will attend each session, it is not unusual for folks to be standing in some sessions:

Another session:

And yet another:

There is an incredible intimacy to an event like this. Since every attendee is helping to construct the value of each session, you can’t help but meet new people and feel truly a part of something:

It always amazed me WHO was there as well. Everywhere you looked, there was an expert from somewhere in the publishing world or a passionate advocate for reading:

In the final session of the day, Guy LeCharles Gonzales lead a session on business models in publishing:

The day ends much as it began, with Ami standing on furniture, thanking everyone for their contributions:

A cocktail hour ends Book Camp. There was a large crowd still chatting for more than an hour after the official sessions ended:

Wine, cheese, and fruit was served:

More informal conversations:

After the event ended, a group of volunteers and attendees helped clean up.

A sea of chairs that need to be put back in their place:

Here is a final look at “the big board,” filled with critical topics in publishing and reading:

And a nice shout out to sponsors of the event, without whom this day would not have been possible:

In all, an incredibly impressive event by any measure. Because every attendees is encouraged to participate, you get a bit more of a workshop feel to many sessions. It also underscores the idea that the audience is the expert – this is not an event structured around one speaking to many, but rather, the community speaking to each other.

 

Kudos to the organizers, attendees, volunteers and sponsors for an amazing event!
You can also see a recap of a Book Camp meetup from December 2010.

-Dan

@DanBlank

I have been considering the value of coming together, instead of pulling apart. Of building relationships, not moving merchandise. Of how we can work together to work towards our goals, not build barriers that impedes the process.

I will soon be announcing some exciting ways to connect – that we can work together to grow your impact and establish your legacy.

I work at my local Starbucks quite often, and when I do, I sit at the long communal table in the middle of the store:

I think it’s an apt metaphor for approaching how to grow your career.

Not separate, but together.

Not hoping to remain unnoticed, but open to the chance meeting, to serendipity.

Realizing that we don’t win by nudging out others, but welcoming them in.

That relationships matter, not “products.”

That the lessons from our insecure teenage years shouldn’t be: take fewer social risks as an adult.

That age should not naturally close you off to others.

That you can’t build a strong foundation alone.

That the path to success is not about outsmarting others, but connecting with them.

I hope you will join me at the communal table.

-Dan

The blue pins on this map encapsulates my dad’s childhood in the 1940s and 50s from birth to age 18:

Each pin marks a significant place: where he played stickball; where he had his first haircut; where he learned to ride his bike; where he walked with his dad each night to pick up the early edition of the next day’s newspaper.

And in some ways, we can peek into that past: this is an aerial view of my Dad’s neighborhood from 1954, when he would have been in High School:

(image via HistoricAerials.com)

I have been obsessed with how we capture and share the stories of our lives. I have written posts in the past about how I have leveraged Facebook to share photos of places in the town I grew up in, and was amazed at how people provided the context. Likewise, another post about someone who is preserving the history of an entire town that disappeared from the face of the planet.

New resources keep popping up, such as a new Facebook Group where people from the town I grew up in share their experiences living there. It has become an amazing historical record of STORIES and EXPERIENCES. The types of things that no book can create a record of, such as this question and answer series: “Where was your favorite place to party? Whose house? Which set of woods?” where people describe the ditches, patches of woods, train tracks and dirt trails that made up their best experiences growing up. Read through some of the responses, you can sense the meaning that these places had to each person, and yet, the places they describe are not landmarks you can easily mark on a map:

Many of these places are long gone, now housing developments and strip malls. In a way, this is an oral history, the legends that exist in the minds of kids and adults, as the world whisks past us.

but…

I am finding that theses tools to capture the stories of our lives are both AMAZING and LIMITING.

They allow us to share, but the information is quickly lost in untagged, unorganized status update threads from weeks or months ago. Systems such as Facebook are built for the moment, not for archival purposes. You see the same question asked again and again, weeks apart. You see parts of a story in one comment thread, and another part somewhere else in a photo comment. And this is even within the same platform – it does nothing to bring in photos or commentary from other sources.

There are books about the history of my town. Here is one of them:

As you can see, there is no chapter titled “Ditches that kids partied in in 1986.” Perhaps you are thinking that this is irrelevant, that there is no point in preserving this type of history. For me, this is the REAL story of our lives. The little things that are meaningful beyond compare. The types of memories that we covet – not the facts and figures, but the moments of our very presence in certain places, at certain times, with certain people. The things that seem insignificant, but characterize the depth of our experience as human beings. Small stories – of places that “don’t matter” to the larger world, but mattered incredibly in our lives.

Yes, the book above likely crafts a wonderful narrative, sharing a combination of facts and stories that embody a general view of the place I grew up. And it is something extremely valuable, plus it preserves these things far better than Facebook does. But a book such as this misses out on some of the value that social media provides:

• It can’t evolve, constantly adding more and more detail and context to the story, as social media can provide.
• Individuals can’t share their own story of a time or place.
• You don’t get the FEELING of places or individuals. Maybe it mentions a well-known proprietor of a local bar, but it doesn’t tell you the funny stories or give you people’s memories of him.
• It doesn’t integrate well with multiple ways of experiencing the same place or time, perhaps through maps or photos.
• It is limited by one view of one time or place. The story doesn’t keep adding the experiences of the next generation. It doesn’t speak to those who went to High School there in 1986 as different than those who went to High School there in 1991.
• It doesn’t invite us all to contribute, regardless of who we are. We are told the story, not allowed to become a part of it.

With the limits I am finding in existing social networks, I am desperately looking for a tool to capture, organize and preserve these stories. If you know of one, please let me know. I am looking for much of what Facebook has delivered, but with a way to link pieces to a larger narrative; to tag it to a map; align to a timeline; aggregate photos and stories and videos; and include attribution to individual contributors. And maybe even a way to place a “call for information” so if we are missing the piece of the puzzle, we can crowdsource the answer. And of course, a place where we can truly archive this material, and make it easy to access.

And if I don’t find the tool I need, I may just have to build it.

Reading through that list of “party spots” from my home town again, it makes you realize that the places, the times, the events that matter were not what we most commonly share: where we went to college, where we worked, what our job titles and accomplishments were. But those ditches, patches of woods, trails, train tracks, and trees that somehow made up our lives. Those silly unstructured moments with no purpose other than to be present.

Thanks!
-Dan