III">Barcamp Austin III

Dur­ing the early part of March, the masses come down to Austin for SXSW. But it’s not the only ticket in town. Not by a long stretch. There are lots of other great things to do in Austin at the same time. For me that means Bar­Camp Austin III.

Will Hur­ley, or @whurley as he is more com­monly known, has been the evil genius behind this fast grow­ing annual event. With the help of Gio­vanni Gal­lucci (@giovanni) and a whole host of great vol­un­teers, the pre­vi­ous bar­camps have been a good com­bi­na­tion of shar­ing and fun. Truth be told, I mod­eled Pod­Camp San Anto­nio after last years open, loose and laid back Bar­Camp Austin II. Well, minus the bar part.

I knew things were going to be dif­fer­ent at this years bar­camp when I first saw their smok­ing logo. It was con­firmed when we walked into the GSD&M|Idea City build­ing which was host to the event. From the high tech sign-in to improv to the iPhone Dev Camp it was the best Bar­Camp ever. Ladies and Gen­tle­men the bar has been set and it’s been set high. The swag wasn’t too shabby either.  I do have to give kudos for hav­ing shirts styles espe­cially for the ladies. It was a very nice and often over­looked bonus.

Dif­fer­ent from last year were ses­sions held in sep­a­rate rooms vs. hav­ing all the ses­sions in one main area with room for break­outs.  This was good in that it allowed for more ses­sions to hap­pen. The draw­back for me was miss­ing out on ses­sions I wanted to attend because they were all hap­pen­ing at the same time.  My favorite pre­sen­ta­tion was the Half-Baked ses­sion in which we cre­ated a com­pany to pitch to VC in 15 min­utes.  It was invig­o­rat­ing. You know how I much I love my cof­fee. So, when I tell you that ses­sion did more to wake me up than the cof­fee I drank ear­lier, I want you to know just how ener­giz­ing the expe­ri­ence was.

Now with all these folks in and out of ses­sions there is a ten­dency to get hun­gry and thirsty. Well those needs were met thanks to great spon­sors like Wahoo’s Fish Tacos, Inde­pen­dence Brew­ery and Sweet Leaf iced tea. I know I cer­tainly enjoyed the grub and tasty brew.

The big sur­prise was the Bat­tle­Bot pre­sen­ta­tion of Steel Reign or as it’s now being referred as, “When Robots Attack”.  I’m still scratch­ing my head won­der­ing just what the AC unit said to Steel Reign to tick it off so much. Well, Steel Reign showed it who was boss.

The bar­camp fun con­tin­ued on with the evening por­tion of the fes­tiv­i­ties. A con­cert by   Soul­hat was fol­lowed by karaoke fun with Karaoke Apoc­a­lypse. What’s more Amer­i­can than hot dogs, beer and a con­cert?

If Bar­Camp Austin was a young­ster and Bar­Camp Austin II was a rowdy teenager, then I would have to say that Bar­Camp Austin III was a akin to debu­tante ball. Yes, Bar­Camp Austin is all grown up and with style to spare!