"How Cool Is That?" - RE Barcamp 1 Year Later

Quantity or Quality?
Who knew that when Andy Kaufman presented the idea on Twitter a year ago that maybe a Real Estate focused Barcamp was a good idea that close to 30 events will have taken place or been planned to take place by the end of the year? (Don't know what a Barcamp is? Click Here) Who knew that one of our own would be hired by NAR as the Social Media Director or that an RE Barcamp would take place at NAR headquarters with NAR President, Dale Stinton there as one of the Campers? Brad Coy, Todd Carpenter, Jason Berman, yours truly and many others jumped in head first to the inaugural effort in SF without any idea what would happen or how many people would attend. I worked the phones and e-mail, did a logo and every person I spoke to said yes to sponsoring at $250. Benn Rosales and a few other people had the same result. Our friends and contacts were buying in based on the group of people involved. Zillow even located their "Beer With Bloggers" Inman Connect sponsorship right next door to the location of the event. That's a pretty expensive sponsorship slot and Zillow gambled on moving it so far from the venue. It was a resounding success and the format was pretty much pure Barcamp rules. There have been a few open conference calls to discuss the state of the movement and what could be done to help those interested in setting up events in their own respective areas. There have been some great successes, however, many of them were done in more traditional conference format with leveled sponsorships etc. I can only assume that the measure of success was based on a comparison to other traditional style events. I can understand why some of the organizers took this route. I alluded to it in my analysis of the second RE Barcamp that I helped organize in Houston. Brad Coy, Andy Kaufman and Ginger Wilcox recently had a meeting regarding the one year anniversary of REBC, here's what they had to say:

"For the one year anniversary of RE BarCamp, Brad, Andy and I sat around a table trying to figure out how to make REBC bigger and better, but we realized that it doesn’t need to be bigger. The size of the event does'nt really make it better. So, how do we make it better?"

I am in complete agreement. Quality is more important to these events. I'm not sure where the tipping point is, but I would guess its at around 90 to 100 registrants. I would rather see people do more events with less participants. In the end what I think doesn't matter, it's up to the local organizers to plan their events and establish their own goals and measurements of success.

Participants, Not Attendees
I think that trying to get large groups of re professionals to attend an "un-conference" is probably antithetical to the concept, certainly so with first time events. Barcamps need participants, not attendees. The format can be a bit intimidating due to that fact. Because they are volunteer based and done without a profit motive in mind, you'll always have a hard time getting enough people in a ground crew out to explain it to enough folks ahead of the event. NAR is behind the movement and perhaps over time the events can be larger and still achieve the same benefits for the participants, but until then I think the idea of keeping the events limited to the resources at hand is a good one. For instance, Seattle is about to embark on their second event. The first was a resounding success and there were enough people participating in REBCSEA1 to help get the word out for a second effort.

I have no issue with conferences and seminars. It's pretty easy to pack a room of re attendees these days and talk about Twitter, Facebook, Linked In or any number of other cool web, social or technology related tools. They are the hot topics of the day. I'm glad to see these type of traditional events and expos taking place. MLBroadcast is one of the new tools being used to leverage the new rules of real estate. Anything done to help our clients have a better understanding of how their content is being exposed and distributed these days only makes our job easier.

All Your Base Are Belong To Us
What shouldn't happen is for anyone to make the mistake of comparing a properly executed BarCamp to a traditional tracked event where the agenda is owned (literally and figuratively) by event planners.

"Barcamps are not days filled with speakers and power point decks. If the complete agenda has been established before you get there and has not been generated by the event's participants, it's a conference. In a Barcamp you do not have to participate in the discussions etc., however, it is strongly encouraged"

When you look at "The Details" sidebar of the SF RE Barcamp site you'll see when, where, how and the most important - Why;

"Why: To build connections. To better grow our businesses. To push boundaries. To be creative in an open and supportive forum."

The topics and complete agenda for a Barcamp should be created on the fly, the morning of the event. It's o.k. to come up with some example session topics ahead of time, but whether or not they get implemented should be up to the participants. Here is the official description of what is now a world wide phenomena.

"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 who are the main actors of the event."

Even at the regular Barcamps I have attended I haven't seen anyone stick to the rule that session topics shouldn't be product presentations or demos. Sponsors are going to talk about their products, so be it. Chances are the kind of sponsor that ponies up for an RE barcamp will spend more time waxing philosophical and sharing deep knowledge than they will trying to sell you product. It just seems to be in the nature of the type of people that frequent these events. Don't get me wrong, they want you to buy their products, but like those with the right kind of social media strategies, they are just as concerned with creating a branding position and top of mind awareness.

I Gotta Get Outta This Place
Personally, what I am more interested in seeing, hearing and being a part of are debates and discussions that are local and/or topical. In many cases they wont have anything to do with technology or social media, and to that I say, "Thank Goodness". I spend the better part of my awake hours deeply ensconced in all of this stuff and sometimes I really want to just engage in a real life human to human conversation! I want to hear about new business models. I want to know about the things that impact my customer base that have absolutely nothing to do with 0's and 1's. The more I know about what keeps my clients awake at night, the better job I can do designing solutions for them. The 2nd of all of the RE Barcamps was held in Houston. We had a really sharp guy show up to talk about consumer credit issues and ideas that were way outside of the box, It was fascinating and really opened up the eyes of those that attended. Two way discussions that spark debate and open the minds of the participants to new ways of thinking are proffered along side the typical agent questions "How does "X*" make me money?" or "Where do I find time to Blog if I am selling real estate?"

It's What You Make of It
The RE Barcamp movement will continue to evolve and change. It obviously is going to look completely different from one market to the next. The format lends itself to providing content at whatever level you want it to be and the answers you get will more than likely come from someone with a deep well of knowledge based on real world experience. The best part, it will probably come from someone without any other value proposition in mind but to be helpful to a fellow human. How cool is that?


PS, I won't be making it to REBCSF next month. I would love to be there but it's just not in the cards. I hope to see many of you in October at RE Blogworld Though!
PSS, Planning for RE Barcamp Houston is going to need to get under way soon, if you attended last year and want to help with this year's event, email me at mprice AT mlbroadcast DOT com.
Cheers Everybody

*Where X is Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, Podcasting etc. etc.