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From MashupCamp
MARCH 17-20, 2008 | Computer History Museum | Mountain View, California
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About Mashup Camp
Mashup Camp is based on the concept of unconferences, which are different from the traditional conferences that feature panels or single speakers directing commentary to attendees.
At "unconferences", the agenda and topics are created by the attendees the first morning of the event. This model ensures the most critical issues are identified and discussed. It also allows every attendee to have the chance to be heard. To assist in channeling the energy, ideas and flow of the attendees, Mashup Camp uses expert facilitators and discussion leaders as well as the Mashup Camp Wiki.
If you're looking for the main page of the Mashup Camp Wiki, you've found the right place. If, however, you're looking for the overall home page of mashupcamp.com, you can find it in the left hand navigation block, or you can click here. If you're looking for information on what the Mashup Camp Wiki is for and how you can use it to start participating now, even though a camp may not currently by taking place, read on. Also on this page is a list of other great pages on this wiki to investigate.
Why wiki?
The Mashup Camp Wiki is an integral part of the mashupcamp.com Web site as well as Mashup Camp, the event. Wiki technology is all about collaboration and open sharing of information. As Mashup Camp co-founder David Berlind has written on his blog over at ZDNet:
- "Imagine if the way the Wikipedia was built was through all of the contributors to it passing around documents to each other via email… It would just grind to a halt and the Wikipedia would never be what it is today. Take the same way the Wikipedia has been built and figure out how to organize the way your company runs so that knowledge is easily collaborated on an distributed in a very efficient manner and you don't rely on proprietary systems [to manage your content]."
Wiki technology is the most efficient way for groups of people to grow their knowledge by posting contribution to that knowledge on the Web: by far the most universally accessible medium to all. So, not suprisingly, given the unconference nature of Mashup Camp, where, instead of talking heads presenting to an audience, everyone is contributing the discussions, wiki technology is the perfect compliment to our event.
Here's an example of how attendees can use the Mashup Camp Wiki:
Preparing to discuss
Prior to a camp taking place, attendees can collaborate on ideas for discussions that they may eventually propose at the event. The proposed sessions page for Mashup Camp 1 is a great example of where such activity happened virtually, prior to the physical event. A similar page has been established for the sixth Mashup Camp (Mashup Camp 6). In addition to a page that's dedicated to the list of discussion ideas, campers have created pages that are specific to each idea like this one about Venture Capital and Mashups. Since wiki technology makes it possible for everybody to add their thoughts to any page, pages that are dedicated to each discussion idea make a lot of sense. By the time the discussion starts, everybody who's attending will have some idea of what to expect!
Setting the agenda
Just because discussion topics may have been hashed out prior to Mashup Camp doesn't mean that the agenda has been set as well. In fact, in unconference fashion, the agenda for Mashup Camp isn't decided until Mashup Camp actually takes place. Instead, in what can best be described as a General Assembly on the morning of each day of camp, all camp attendees gather for a "pitch session." This is where campers are able to stand up and pitch their discussion topics to the entire group. For example, at Mashup Camp 1, Thor Muller and Adrian Holovaty stood up before the groups and pitched a discussion on chicagocrime.org and ScrapePI. As can be seen from the Mashup Camp 1 Agenda page, all of the sessions pitched were then recorded on a wiki page using a grid. Down the side of the grid were the rooms and across the top were the time slots.
So, not only was the agenda determined in real-time, it was recorded onto a Web page using a wiki in real-time, too. But the real benefit of using a wiki to do this is that the agenda could easily be changed by anybody at anytime. For example, if you look at the grids on Camp 1's agenda page (there are two grids, one for each day), you'll notice some empty spots. Well, if someone decided after the General Assembly that they wanted to add a discussion to the grid, they easily could have. That ability for all the campers to be able to collaborate on the agenda through the read/write-Web capability of wikis is why camps and wikis make such a good pair.
How to use this wiki
Finding important pages
- Many of the important pages you need to get started with the Mashup Camp Wiki are found in the left hand navigation. Here are some other links that might be helpful:
Creating and editing pages on the Mashup Camp Wiki
- We've prepared several Help pages regarding the creation of new pages and how to use Wikitext, the wiki markup language of MediaWiki (the platform on which the Mashup Camp Wiki is based).
- Creating a new account and logging in -- you'll need to login before you can add new pages or edit existing ones on this wiki.
- How to create new pages on this wiki -- very helpful in terms of creating new pages about yourself or about a discussion idea that you might want to propose at Mashup Camp.
- A guide to the many wikitext commands -- it's pretty surprising how powerful Wikitext is in terms of formatting pages. This is about as complete a guide as you'll find here on this wiki.
- Wikitext Quick Reference -- same as the aforementioned guide, but you don't have to wade through some formalities to get to the guts of the syntax.
- Tips and Tricks -- good reading for anyone getting ready to dive in because of how it gives you some pointers to things that might not be so obvious (or, that are hard to find).
