BarCampRochester3

Last weekend, I has the pleasure to attend BarCampRochester which was a great time. Thanks to the organizers and sponsors for making this happen!

<p>I gave a session that introduced <a href="http://www.syntheticbiology.org/">synthetic biology</a>, <a href="http://www.igem.org">iGEM</a>, their motivations, and surrounding issues.  I&#8217;ve uploaded my slides in <span class="caps">PDF</span> (1.5MB): <a href="http://jayunit.net/assets/2008/4/7/morrison_synthetic_biology_barcamprochester3.pdf">Synthetic Biology at BarCampRochester</a>.</p>


<p>Here are a few takeaways from some of the sessions I attended:</p>


<p>There was a great session and discussion about <strong>intellectual property: copyright, patents, and trademarks</strong> &#8211; in particular how these apply to software and why patents aren&#8217;t necessarily evil (although the patent duration is surely out of touch with the speed of the software market).  I&#8217;ll be reading more about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_innovation">Open Innovation</a>, with an eye toward its applicability to both software and science.</p>


<p><a href="http://www.it.rit.edu/~jab/">Al Biles</a> led a brainstorming session about the <strong>nature of creativity</strong> and what it means to be creative.  This was an open-ended discussion with an exploratory nature, and was quite enjoyable.  Al differentiated between P-creativity, which is an act that is original from an indivudal&#8217;s perspective, and H-creativity, which is an act that is original with respect to all known history.  He also recommended <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dimensions-Creativity-Bradford-Books-Margaret/dp/0262522195/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&#38;s=books&#38;qid=1207531237&#38;sr=1-1">Margaret Boden&#8217;s &#8220;Dimensions of Creativity.&#8221;</a></p>


<p>I learned about the difficultly of accessing supposedly <strong>open governmental data in the US</strong> due to its distribution in proprietary or obtuse formats.  Consider a database that is made accessible by taking screenshots from within the Oracle admin tool, printing these out, scanning them back in, and distributing the lot as a <span class="caps">PDF</span>.  Fighting the good fight,  there are projects like those at the <a href="http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/">Sunlight Foundation</a> that focus on making this data more readily accessible.</p>


<p>Then, there are projects like <a href="http://www.everyblock.com/">EveryBlock</a>, which collates such data and lets you filter it by location, so you can learn about <strong>happenings in your neighborhood</strong> from crimes to business licensing to permit issuances.  This is a great trend, and I hope to see it grow both in the domain of making data accessible and making it useful.</p>


<p>Following up on the political theme, I was in a thought-provoking session called &#8220;So you want to become a lobbyist?&#8221; that took a look at the importance of some of the &#8220;nuts and bolts&#8221; political issues like <a href="http://www.ncsl.org/programs/legismgt/elect/redist.htm">redistricting</a>, and how effective grassroots movements are on a local scale (the consensus: very effective).  Remy made an interesting point that grassroots means person-to-person, whether that&#8217;s door-to-door or online.</p>


<p>Sam &amp; Katie gave a refreshing talk about <strong>relationship branding</strong>: 2 cool kids = 1 cool brand:  <a href="http://thinkskinc.com/">thinkskinc.com</a>.</p>


<p>Justin Thorp has a great post that he wrote post-BarCamp about <a href="http://drinkingoatmealstout.com/2008/04/07/start-thinking-about-your-personal-brand-early-even-in-college/">starting your personal branding in college</a> that is spot on.  Having attended a fair number of conferences, I was also caught slightly off-guard by the lack of biz card trading.  Go go day job plug for <a href="http://www.vistaprint.com">business cards</a>!</p>


<p>Finally, if you&#8217;re in the Rochester, NY area, definitely check out the <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/society-of-lectors/web/about-society-of-lectors"><strong>Society of Lectors</strong></a>, a group of folks who hold regular meetings to give BarCamp style presentations on a wide gamut of topics.  Go brush up on your presentation skillz, and learn something new!</p>

2 Responses to “BarCampRochester3”

1. James Turk says:

   April 7, 2008 at 1:44 pm

   Hi Jason,

   Nice meeting you at Barcamp, thanks for mentioning my presentation + linking Sunlight in this post.

   By the way, do you have RSS/Atom syndication turned off? I wanted to subscribe but FF3 feed discovery couldn’t find a feed.
2. Jason Morrison says:

   April 7, 2008 at 1:44 pm

   Hey James,

   It was great meeting you, too, and hearing about the work going on at Sunlight.

   It looks like my feed isn’t linked from the main page – it should be still available at http://jayunit.net/feed. Cheers!