My personal view is that hope is a rather special thing. There are a number of psychologists who are currently researching its effects and its causes. That is a whole other post. For now, just take it that it is a powerful force that sustains us.

The picture is of a mural in Stokes Croft, in Bristol – it is linked to the original posting on Flickr by edmittance.

Bristol council removed the mural, blacking it out. Almost symbolic. Cheo and 3Dom – the artists behind the piece – were less than impressed, and responded in the medium they had originally used.

Council vandalism uploaded by edmittance

Again the council painted over the shop front.

As it turns out, Bristol Council’s actions were actually incorrect, and you can read their apology on the Bristol graffiti blog.

Any way, the next response was a little more terse than the first, although more wordy than the original art piece that was removed!

It simply reads:

“When will you learn?”

“You’re just making things worse!”

When will you learn uploaded by edmittance

Don’t they know that hope keeps you going, even in the face of defeat?

You can deny it, decry it and smother it, but hope doesn’t die. It goes beyond the let downs and disappointments, the challenges and the set backs.

We need hope.

Organisations rarely recognise hope, or act out of it. That is a great shame.

As individuals, we can. Nurture hope when you see it.

* With thanks to @paul_clarke for bring the photos to my attention and the pointer to the post on Bristol graffiti blog.

What is a Barcamp? What is an Unconference?

It is a little hard to explain, or rather it is easier to understand when you experience it. Traditional conferences involve a few dozen experts presenting to an audience of several dozen listeners. That might be good if the listeners are new to the topic and all want to learn the same thing, and that is well understood.

What if the room is full of people who are almost equally experts? What if the organisers don’t know what people want to know? That is when an unconference comes in to its own. Imagine an environment where everyone is expected to be an organiser, and where the agenda is decided on the day. That is essentially what an unconference is. Lightweight organization, and extensive participation.

A BarCamp is most easily understood as a specific type of unconference. It is more complex than that, and there is quite a bit of history/lore to it. A number of years ago O’Reilly set up a conference for the Friends Of O’Reilly (FOO) who were doing interesting things (Foo Camp). And rather cool it was too. However, not everyone could go. People wanted an alternative. Foobar is a common placeholder name in computing circles. Foobar camp with out the FOO is clearly a bar camp. Or something like that.

The concept goes back quite a way – a least to Harrison Owen’s book Open Space Technology (1997) – see openspaceworld.org for more on that. The Open Space methodology is similar, although the ideas are a little different (see wikipedia entries for Unconference and BarCamp).

What should you expect when you go to a barcamp? That question is nicely answered here. It isn’t as scary as it might sound. You’ll meet new people, learn somethings, and have to opportunity to share some of what you know (which is more than you think)!

How do I Run an Unconference or Barcamp?

Darren Barefoot of Capulet Communications has a nice post on how to run a great barcamp. The venerable post on clever clever girl is good too: Ten Steps to Organizing a Barcamp. There are even more resources on the event manager’s blog: 20+ resources for a smooth BarCamp.

That said, this is one instance where doing is the best form of learning. Go along to a few barcamps and see what works and what doesn’t. Get involved in helping to run an existing camp or unconference with people who have done it before. With that learning under your belt, you’ll be ready to have a go yourself, assuming you are already a good facilitator.

(other pointers gratefully received… Crowdsourcing is good, usually).