Brainjamming in the Bay Area

It seems like so long ago, but this past Saturday was the second Brainjams gathering/ un-conference. Once again it was a great event where I got to meet plenty of new people, while also reconnecting with friends that I've made in the past couple months.

During the morning sessions, we divided into two groups. The first was people with ideas who are looking for technical expertise to help them realize them; and the second group were the people who had the techical expertise and were looking to match them with ideas.

In the spirit of speed dating, we then held 5 minute-long one on one meetings with attendeee from the opposite group. When the bell rang, it was on to the next person. This format allowed us to meet a lot of new people while still giving each person a chance to tell their story, have a mini-brainstorming session, & exchange contact information.

After a nice catered lunch, Noah Kagan led a panel of college students who talked about their internet experiences. I recorded most of it and event organizer Chris Heuer turned it into a podcast.

We then divided the room into three sections where participants held breakout sessions on a variety of topics. A couple of topics that I attended were: Networks (Social, Economic, Physical and otherwise) & Translatiing Web 2.0y stuff to (non-geek) change agents (in order to "save the world")

For both of these afternoon sessions, I was an offical note-maker. The folks from Mindjet graciously donated copies of their MindManager software so that we could take notes in the form of mindmaps. This was basically my first time using the program and I was amazed how easily I was up and running.

After the afternoon session we gathered together for one last time where we recapped the day's events and then headed down to the afterparty to wind down.

Here's a list of links to wrap-ups: Alicia Preston, Kristie Wells, Brain Shields & also his piece on KRON4

Brainjams: The Blog

Flickr photoset of the event tagged brainjams3dec2005

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