In about 30 days, a bunch of Internet entrepreneurs, enthusiasts and geeks will gather at the Halles des Tanneurs in Brussels to share experiences and learn from each other: Barcamp Brussels. This is the 3rd edition of this ‘unconference’ that has proven to be a great place to meet new people and ideas.
Attendees = participants
So what is this ‘unconferencing’ thing about?
A BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from participants. (barcamp.org)
I spent last weekend at the Brussels Tango Festival, mostly taking pictures of people dancing. Because of the lack of light that is typical for tango events, I had bought a Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens online one week before. First at Pixmania, but because they couldn’t deliver fast enough (product not in stock), I cancelled and ordered at Foto Konijnenberg. I expected the package to be delivered in a couple of days. When I didn’t see any sign of delivery and the track&trace URL didn’t work, I contacted Foto Konijnenberg (very friendly and correct customer support, by the way) to ask what was happening. Apparently the transport company had been at my door twice, did however not leave any message, took the package back and at that moment no one could tell me where the package was. We’re now 2 weeks after purchase and still at the same stage: my lens is somewhere in the purgatory between vendor and buyer but the transport company (TNT/DPD) has no clue where.
Apart from the fact that the transporter screwed up their tracking of the package, the whole process of showing up at closed doors and going back seems so inefficient. It’s like so much effort has been spent to smoothen out the process of purchasing online, but the physical delivery still works basically the same as twenty years ago, eventhough the drivers now have wireless devices and you have to sign on an electronic sensor.
Let’s describe how I would have preferred to have my goods delivered:
I got invited by Nokia to talk a bit about podcasting and music discovery. The results of that interview, combined with opinions of Clo Willaerts, Alex Koprivnicanec, Steven Lemmens and Dieter Sermeus, can be found on the Nokia Nsights blog. Instead of just creating a sales brochure for their N95 phone, Nokia created a place where new technologies and trends are discussed, thus touching the bleeding edge of Internet, music, photo, video, and GPS usage. The perfect positioning for a state-of-the-art phone like the N95.
Today, the Nokia N95 starts a new and exciting future, building on the combination of all these revolutionary devices. Therefore, we’ve invited visionaries from across the technology world to share their insights into different parts of the future that got here early.
A totally weird mix of posts on technology, advertising, social software, society, tango and women. Not necessarily in that order.
If you want to, you could even subscribe.
In about 30 days, a bunch of Internet entrepreneurs, enthusiasts and geeks will gather at the Halles des Tanneurs in Brussels to share experiences and learn from each other: Barcamp Brussels. This is the 3rd edition of this ‘unconference’ that has proven to be a great place to meet new people and ideas.
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