InfoCamp Seattle: October 13-14

 

You are invited to: InfoCamp 2007 - a BarCamp conference to openly discuss cutting-edge ideas and issues in information architecture, libraries, user services, user experience design, interaction design, cataloging, usability, user-centered design, information search and retrieval, information science research, and all other disciplines where information and technology are inexorably connected.

 

Event: Title: InfoCamp Seattle

Date: October 13th and 14th, 2007

Time: 9:00 am – 6:00 pm

Location: Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, 4408 Delridge Way SW, Seattle, Washington

Cost: ASIS&T members, IAI members, students, and volunteers get in free, free, free!

Website: http://asistpnw.org/infocamp2007/

 

 

This event will feature a flexible format with no pre-set session schedule, apart from a keynote address (Nick Finck of Digital Web Magazine) and plenary sessions (TBA) to open and close the conference. Session topics will be decided at the start of the conference by the attendees, and any attendee can sign up to present in any slot. Presenters will have a chance to preview their topic to everyone at the main stage before each session.
Ultimately, InfoCamp is geared toward creating discussions and sparking new ideas within the information-oriented communities by providing a venue for students and professionals to present their work, discuss concepts or get feedback on current problems. The philosophy of this event is "No Spectators!" and everyone in attendance will be encouraged to participate by either presenting or contributing to the conversations the presentations create.

InfoCamp aims to strengthen the bonds of the information community and bring the multitude of information-related disciplines closer together. To these ends, InfoCamp will create a dynamic, kinetic, exciting, egalitarian environment where the content of the conference will be created by the attendees.

Presentations can consist of anything, from a wacky idea to a product demo, and various presentation mediums will be made available from whiteboards to digital projectors and screens. The setup of the conference will also offer opportunities to pursue further discussion by providing more casual activities and breakout rooms. Professionals and students will be mingling, exchanging ideas, helping each other solve problems… in short, rubbing elbows.

For the students at the iSchool, participating in InfoCamp will introduce them to the larger information community, exposing them to leading- and cutting-edge concepts. InfoCamp will give students a chance to meaningfully contribute to the community of ideas, receive feedback, network with professionals in their fields of interest, and seek out potential future employers and internship possibilities.

Above all, this format is meant to be fun and welcoming by breaking down the formal constraints imposed by the majority of academic and professional modes of collaboration and information exchange. This will allow for meaningful, social, ad hoc, face-to-face, peer-to-peer information exchange. The ideas will flow profusely, and hopefully produce new and novel concepts and open the doors of informational illumination. At InfoCamp, our information cup with runneth over.

For more information on BarCamps, check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcamp.
We are also looking for volunteers to help with this event. Please email daylen@u.washington.edu to volunteer.