ryantxr

 Barcamp Sarasota was the second such event in 2010. It is the first time that I've seen a specific event like this done more than once in a year. This was a very well run event. Sarasota is a small town. I had expected that it would be a smaller event. The turn out was excellent.

Barcamp Sarasota Photos

Thanks should go to Sara Hand for driving this event to such a level of excellence.

Thanks to Marc Kaplan for driving and the great podcasts to educate us along the way.

Mark Laymon and I did a talk about how to create and build a tech community. This was an adhoc discussion and was not a formal presentation. Mark and I walked through what we did to build New Tech Community.

I attended a panel discussion on trends affecting the economy and technology.  This was done by 4 individuals: Joel Lopez, Boaz, A and Carl Buhl.  This had to be one of the most informative talks I have seen in years.  These four had so much knowledge.  I was blown away.  They talked about trends in technology, education patterns, global economic changes and much more.  I would love to have these guys come talk at New Tech Community at some point in the next 12 months.

Later on I did a talk on permission based email marketing. This talk was for beginners and covered basics for someone to start using email to promote services.

The after party is a huge reason to go to a barcamp or similar event. Murray Izenwasser once told me that the good networking happens after the event. We had planned to stay overnight so we could stay and bond with the Sarasota crowd. The later it gets, the better the networking.

We went to a place called Clayton Siesta Grille on Siesta Key. This was an American Bistro type place which had good food and enough space to handle the Barcamp crowd. There were mixed groups and lots of bonding. Thanks again to Sara Hand for arranging this. I had the chance to talk to Claton Thompson who owned the place. He was actually at my email marketing talk earlier in the day. He and I talked a little about email for business and we agree to talk at a later day. I'm anxious to hear what he has tried in email marketing and what has worked or what has not.

After that we went to Gulf ___, which is a small area in Sarasota with a number of neighborthood bars. We went to a place called Bada Bing which was a barebones place with a pool table and some TVs. There we stayed until almost three in the morning. The characters we saw at this place were legendary.

When we got back to our hotel, we were exhausted. Sleep did not take long to come.

I am grateful we were able to get to this event. We bonded with some new quality individuals and I look forward to interacting with them in the future.

Here are some of the people we met:

Ben King (@voalteking)

Jennifer Wohlforth

Mical Johnson

Cassandra Branson(@therootlist)

Stan Schultes

Fay Lynne Huang

Clayton Thompson

Brian Delaney

John Meeks