That was it for me today.  Had to split early so I missed the last couple of sessions.  I came back in time to have a beer, watch some Rock Band and listen in on the acoustic jam and then we got kicked out.  Hopefully the camp returns to BarCamp in the fall.

That’s right.  A presentation on presentations.  Right about now is when I kick myself for never, ever writing down the presenters name.  What kind of notes do I take?  Srsly.  This was a great talk on the basics of talking at a group of people.  And…GASP…he used no slides!  Which was awesome because the absolute reliance on OO.o/PowerPoint/Keynote/whatever slides that happens (not necessarily at BarCamp but EVERYWHERE) kind of drives me crazy.  Most presentations could be handed out and lose the speaker and you would get more out of it.  But I’m ranting…

Other things I jotted down:

Human to human communication

Make sure there’s 3 clear points

How not to say um, if you think of saying um, inhale (this works!)

A fun session on the history of the Aibo and a little overview of the existing Aibo community despite the fact that Sony discontinued the product.

Aibo’s come apart! They were originally envisioned to have modular parts

Aibo memory sticks are really hard to find (pink sticks which differ from traditional storage memory sticks)

Resources:

tekkotsu.org

aibopet.com

bbs.aibosite.com

iRobot makes a platform called Create (non-vaccuum roomba) which allows you to hack away at it and create other robots.  So, if you want to build your robot army, start with something like this.

Presented by Jonathan Strauss, UnClasses.org

Was setup to facilitate teaching/learning connections.  Everyone has something to teach and this provides a place to publicize and build a group of students.  Referred to as “Casual Learning” (or Casual Teaching I suppose)

Casual learning – everyone has something to teach

Unclasses.org will setup classes by metro area. You setup a class and then host it (in real life).  You can schedule a class and leave info as TBD to see if you have interest before committing a location.

Anyone can teach or learn

Instant knowledge share?

A cool presentation that generated a lot of discussion about Alternate Reality Games.  Discussed using them as marketing tools and talked about the challenges and nuances of running an intricate “game” without shattering the alternate reality or endangering the participants.

-websites used as mystery to drive discussion for traditional media

-Interesting discussion on setting up alternate realities, the boundaries you hit, the wildcards (users trying to break the game) and rewarding users just enough to keep them interested.

BarCampLA 7 has come and gone and I’m going to post my quick notes from the sessions.  They’re not at all in-depth enough to make you feel like you were there but they’re enough to help me remember what I attempted to learn.  Maybe you should come to the next one if my notes aren’t good enough for you.

Using Drupal to run Warner Bros artist sites. One Drupal install runs many many sites.

50 sites based on same code base and module stack. All code managed with subversion. Still have db synch issues between development and production db’s.

Brainstorming/Discussion about technology and the use of it in politics. Eric Bidwell is presenting, he’s running for SD mayor. (look up Twitter balloon widget)

I need to collect some links and post them here.

Kicking off with talk of nodes and references…I may be in over my head. Yep, in over my head…I need more basic Drupal experience before I get all up in this. Now demoing the use of Panels to layout Drupal pages. I need to study.

I’m excited about this one. I believe it’s the sandwich presentation that I missed at BarCampLA. That might be the best thing about having another BarCamp relatively close…I get to see presentations I missed at BarCampLA.

Be wise in your sandwich construction. How do you stack the ingredients? Don’t make your bread soggy. Think about the various characteristics of your ingredients. A random person has been picked from the audience to build a new sandwich that they have never created. The pressure!

And now, it’s opened to the group to come up and make a sandwich like they have never made.