A good friend of mine, Kamal Fariz is organizing BarCamp Malaysia 2008, aimed for 26th and 27th July. BarCamp is more of and adhoc conference, or as some would like to say “unconference”.
The Negated Conference
What would a negated conference be exactly? Regular conferences (at least the ones Malaysians are accustomed to) tend to be very one way.
- You plant your ass down.
- Presenter comes up on stage.
- You clap your hands in respect.
- Presenter delivers the information.
- You absorb information.
At no point in the conference, do the audience generally contribute back.
The goal of this (un/negated) conference is to facilitate that.
Discussions. Demos. Interaction.
Disclaimer: at least thats what it says on the wiki page
Information wants to be free.
Volunteering
Looking at their Facebook page, volunteer meetings are planned to be held every Thursday, and there was one just last night, which I happened to miss.
If you are interested, you can sign up as a Camper (Participant) at the BarCamp wiki page.
Resources
or at least the ones in the Kuala Lumpur, and Petaling Jaya area.
Come midnight 5th June 2008, Malaysians braced themselves for the worse. They prepared at least a bottle of water, perhaps even some snacks, and maybe brought a friend or family member along to keep them company. They were getting ready for the adventure of their lifetime. Their future uncertain, and we all know how much we fear uncertainty.
What was all this for? To line themselves up for perhaps an hour or more trying to save 20-50 MYR on gas.
Thus proving that they value their money more than their time.
I came about the The Malaysian Dotcom Youth Search through one of my emails. Here are some slogans from their site.
- The Hunt For Innovative, Commercially Viable Website.
- Web Awards recognizing the very best in Malaysian Youths.
If you go through the list of over 100 websites, you’ll notice that a large number of them are blogs. Does that make them commercially viable? No not really. But when you opt to join their ranks, they ask you “How is your site considered INNOVATIVE?” (with capitalization preserved). Is there any innovation in these bloggers? Personally, I think not.
Where is the innovation?
As an experiment, I submitted my Malaysia Air Pollution Index, and see how it fares amongst them.
Disadvantages: haze.net.my gets booted from the list.
Advantages: More visibility for the site.
Interestingly enough they also ask “How does your site bring INCOME?” (again with capitalization preserved). To which I honestly responded “It doesn’t”.
