Jim Grisanzio

Here are my images from Tokyo BarCamp 2010 on Saturday. It was a long day — 18 hours door to door, actually. But that’s BarCamp. And it was frustrating to miss so many great sessions since there was so much going on simultaneously. But that, too, is BarCamp. Aside from that, though, it was a really great day getting together with the international community in Tokyo.

This is the third BarCamp here in Japan in the last year where OpenSolaris community members have contributed in a significant way — either by presenting, organizing, or sponsoring. Also thanks to the organizers and participants who directly contributed, and to the sponsors for offering so many resources so freely. People from dozens of communities participated all day in sessions on software development, networking, security, content, hacking, science, ecology, politics, community building, activism, language learning tools, etc. Great to see so many guys from the Linux community participating again as well. Hope the images came out ok.

I tag all my BarCamp blogs here. And I have thousands more general community images here. More BarCamp Japan stuff here: Fumi Yamazaki, Rick Martin, Johan Rooms, Yoshifumi Yamaguchi, BarCamp Tokyo tag on Flickr (tbarcamp). Also, for more on this type of open community conference, see the Community Leadership Summit.

Lessons learned here.

Shoji, Matthew, and I took Duke to Aoyama tonight to get ready for the BarCamp conference tomorrow. I guess Duke does not ride the Tokyo trains very much because we got some interesting looks. And some people took photos with their cell phones. Then we met up with the core organizing team for BarCamp to get things set for tomorrow.

Tokyo BarCamp tag: http://jimgrisanzio.com/tag/barcamp/. Also, for more on this type of open community conference, see the Community Leadership Summit.

We just posted the schedule for BarCamp Tokyo 2010:

• 09:00-10:00  Arrival and Breakfast
• 10:00-10:15  Welcome/Orientation
• 10:15-10:30  Sign-up for Morning Sessions
• 10:30-12:00  Morning Sessions
• 12:00-13:00  Lunch & Sign-up for Afternoon Sessions
• 13:00-18:00  Afternoon Sessions
• 18:00-19:00  Dinner & Sign-up for Evening Sessions
• 19:00-21:00  Evening Sessions
• 21:00-21:00  Close

These are just the time slots, of course. All of the actual session topics will be filled in on yellow stickies and moved around on white boards (very high tech) at the event in real time. So things will be pretty flexible. Anyway, if you booked to go to BarCamp, come by at 9 a.m. Stay all day. And all night.

I tag everything involving BarCamp here: http://jimgrisanzio.com/tag/barcamp/

For those attending BarCamp Tokyo 2010 this Saturday the 29th, I look forward to seeing you soon! If you’ve never been to a BarCamp, here are two examples of what these events look like from right here in Japan: BarCamp Tokyo 2009 | BarCamp Yokohama 2009. And there is some basic information about BarCamp here and here. BarCamp Tokyo 2010 is just four days away, and it should be a really great day. We’ll have some nice donations from some sponsors (multiple servings of food, shirts, stickers, pens, software, and the building itself, of course).

But as Karamoon said in his opening speech last year, BarCamps are basically living human wikis. People make BarCamps. People sharing interesting content and experiences openly and actively in many-to-many relationships. It’s all about direct participation. That’s the key. There are no special speakers standing on elevated stages lecturing at people safely separated from passive and silent audiences. Everyone engages. Everyone contributes. Everyone teaches. Everyone learns. And everyone picks up the trash.

So, start thinking about what you will present. Or what conversation you’ll lead. Or what idea you’ll plant. Or what project you’ll start and with who. Formal, informal, technical, non-technical, software, hardware, community, panel discussions, debates, photography, artwork, evangelism, marketing, hacking, leadership, activism, internationalization, science, innovation, development techniques, environmental issues, solutions to the world’s most difficult problems, health and safety challenges, economics, etc. What ties all these things together is a spirit of doing and building and sharing and that’s what community is all about.

We have plenty of time and space for everyone to present something. We have multiple rooms for short 15-minute talks, and a larger room for longer 1/2 hour sessions (or even longer events if needed since the schedule is made up on the spot and must remain flexible). And if you don’t actually deliver a talk, that’s ok, but please participate by engaging in discussions with speakers and others and in hallway conversations or over lunch or dinner or at the bar afterwards. You could very well find yourself directly involved in a new life changing experience just by showing up and discovering a new project to which you can contribute. Your input is valuable. Your voice matters. The world changes by people doing things at the grassroots level, not from the top down. This is where the ideas come from. This is where the real value is generated. Down here where people do things.

The facilities we’ll have for the day are seriously beautiful. Bring your cameras. The views of Tokyo are great. Bring your laptops. We’ll have free wireless. Bring your ideas and keep your mind wide open. Also, keep checking the wiki this week for more information and schedules.

NOTE: If your name is listed on the wiki that means you are committed to come. If you can’t make it, please remove your name so you give someone else the opportunity to participate from the waiting list.

We are getting close …

BarCamp Tokyo 2010 is coming together fast now. We have a building (always an interesting task in Tokyo), some sponsors are starting to show up, the website is taking shape, the list is becoming more active, we are planning for t-shirts and food and give-a-ways and an entire day of self-organized presentations, and we have about 100 people signed up already. There is room for more, though. The target for this year is 150. But you have to sign up on the wiki. And we need more sponsors, too. I’d really like to get a lot of photographers, videographers, bloggers, and reporters to help document the event locally and get the word out internationally. We need developers and artists to present, and we’d like people from a variety of communities and nationalities in Tokyo to contribute and tell everyone what’s going on around the city. Translators and organizers would be nice, too. Presentations should be technical and non-technical, so everyone can contribute something and everyone can learn and benefit. Remember, new things are created at BarCamp as a result of entire communities getting together. See Tokyo Hackerspace, which grew out of BarCamp Tokyo 2009. We are building new communities with this event, but we are also connecting existing communities as well. So, go to the wiki and sign up. Get involved. 3 weeks to go.

The Details

Date: Saturday, May 29, 2010
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Register by putting your name and contact information on the wiki.
Previous BarCamps in Japan: BarCamp Tokyo 2009 | BarCamp Yokohama 2009
General BarCamp info: here and here

I see planning for BarCamp Tokyo 2010 is coming along rapidly. The event will be held on Saturday May 29th. I’ll go for sure. I bet the turn out will be huge this year. In 2009 I participated at two BarCamps — Tokyo and Yokohama. What I like best about BarCamp is that no one is special — everyone organizes, everyone talks, everyone contributes. It’s community. Simple.

I track BarCamp stuff at this tag here: http://jimgrisanzio.com/tag/barcamp/

Multiple international communities came together for another BarCamp here in Japan last weekend, this time at the Yokohama International School about a half hour south of Tokyo. Back in May we organized a BarCamp in Tokyo, and I think we`ll do more of these events after this Yokohama effort. This BarCamp model for conference organizing is interesting and extremely efficient because it`s a flat structure and distributes tasks widely: everyone organizes, everyone participates, and the schedule is built live on site. Some OpenSolaris guys were there, and we gave out OpenSolaris t-shirts and CDs and other items. The theme for the event was 21st Century Education. Special thanks to kurisuteen for leading. Great event.

Excellent to see BarCamp Yokohama being planned for late November. I will surely participate if I am in town. The event will be held at the Yokohama International School, so education will likely be top of mind (as it should be). We held a BarCamp in Tokyo back in May. This is what it looked like. Hugely successful conference — organized by the community for the community. All BarCamps are slightly different, so it will be fascinating to see BarCamp Yokohama emerge its own way.

I stopped by the Tokyo Hackerspace Open House today in Shirokanedai. Really nice day to welcome a new community of hackers, builders, and artists into existence. This space, which is a two story house in Tokyo with a backyard, is a welcome distinction to a virtual world filled with distributed digital networks. Tokyo Hackerspace is local and quite physical, and it grew out the community activities at Tokyo BarCamp in May. It`s very cool. Go to the site. Join the mailing list. Stop by the house. Get involved — physically.

I’ve been checking out the Tokyo Hackerspace gmail list for a few weeks. Looks very interesting. The project grew out of some discussions at BarCamp Tokyo a couple of months ago, and I spoke to Karamoon about it at the OpenSolaris community event this weekend. In a world of ever expanding global digital communities, it seems like a nice idea to have a very local a very physical space to hang out in and hack on things that need hacking. Global and digital are fine, but local and physical are needed too. For info, check it out on the wiki.

I’ve been thinking that it might be an interesting time to do a little kernel conference for OpenSolaris, Linux, and the BSDs right here in Tokyo. Get everyone together. See what happens. What the heck.

We could hold the event right at the Sun office on the 27th floor just like BarCamp back in May. We already hold the Tokyo Linux User Group meetings here and get about 40 people each time, we hold OpenSolaris meetings and get about 40 people (and about 100 for formal product launches), and BarCamp drew 100 people from multiple communities. That`s basically where I got the idea from — and, of course, watching James C. McPherson put together his kernel conference in Australia. So, I wonder what would happen if we organized a day long conference specifically to bring together developers and community members from the key open source operating systems in an informal, un-conference format? I wonder what technology and community building bits we could all share together? I bet we could attract 150 top guys from Tokyo, and I bet we’d make quite an impression in the process. And I think there is more than enough talent right here to pull it off without having to call in people from the U.S. or Europe (although they’d certainly be welcome to come and participate, of course).

Just kicking this idea around …

Out of all the photos I took at BarCamp Tokyo last week, this is the most popular image by far — Hiroshi Chonan’s computer.

See Hiroshi’s OpenSolaris Live USB Creator (Windows/.NET)

Amazing day at BarCamp Tokyo all day Saturday and well into the evening. I got home totally exhausted. This event was wonderful because it was organized by volunteers, the corporate sponsors were interested in supporting the community, everyone cooperated and participated, the talks were diverse and interesting, the venue was cool, and we filled the place with about 100 people from many international and Japanese communities in Tokyo. It`s all about the community. And the community led in every way. Over time we should continue moving in this direction and mixing among as many communities as possible. Tokyo is a very large hub in the global community, no question about it. More here on BarCamp Tokyo

Very cool to see 11 sponsors contributing to BarCamp Tokyo this Saturday …

The planning for BarCamp Tokyo is coming along nicely. I see over 100 people signed up to attend, and there is a lot of buzz about who will present during BarCamp on May 16th. The venue is all set, too. There are six sponsors so far: O’Reilly, Opera Software, Sun Microsystems, Tokyo2Point0, Sapphire Interactive, Fujimamas. All of us organizing BarCamp greatly appreciate the efforts and resources those sponsors are contributing to this community effort. However, there is one last item we need sponsorship for: T-Shirts. This is a big deal. We need a shirt to wear. And we are really looking forward to creating an original BarCamp Tokyo t-shirt that blows people away and makes sponsors proud to be involved. I’m not talking about some half-baked design just to have a shirt. I’m talking about something with some style. Something beautiful. Something everyone wants. Remember, we are building an multi-level international community in Tokyo — a community of communities that calls Tokyo home but reaches right around the world into well-established and emerging markets and interesting new communities. In other words, it’s big. Heck, Tokyo is big enough, but that’s not big enough for us. Tokyo = Global.

So, there you have it. There are sponsorship opportunities open for companies to get directly involved in BarCamp Tokyo and contribute to some cool shirts. Interested? Check in with Karamoon (here, here, here). Or leave me a comment here. Or mail me at jimgris at sun dot com.