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Looking for "Ahah!" -- When Did You Get Programming?

Serious Camp Fu 2.0

I haven’t caught the Open Spaces fu.  When I’m told there’s to be a blog walk, I can never figure out exactly what is supposed to happen and even what the ordinary behavior is.  If this is an organized activity, why is the organization a mystery?  If it’s kind of a random event with some bloggers strolling around outdoors, why not say so?  Then I can say, oh, it’s like a geek dinner, a mental potluck.

Likewise, when MindCamp [1.0] was held, it was easy to stay away when the hours and duration were not clear and I couldn’t figure out what it was all about.  “Show up to find out” struck me as a great way to lose a day better spent at something else.  It is therefore with some trepidation (a.k.a excitement) that I’ve thrown my hat into the Mindcamp 2.0 ring.

{tags: OpenSpaces seattlemindcamp OPML pajamahideen orcmid}

I’m still happy to go to Northern Voice on little information.  I have some idea what will be happening before I get there (though I book as soon as I know the next date, well before the program is announced).  I pretty much know what to expect and I’m confident that there will be plenty to participate in.  And at the off moments, I can check in on the folks like Ponzi and Maryam who will be planning dinner.  I always want to make sure I know what the dinner plans are.  That’s my degree of open-spacedness (and dealing with fears of being lost/left-out). 

So, I figured that the Moose Camp portion of Northern Voice 2006 would teach me about Open Spaces and what has Nancy White be so enthusiastic about the idea. It didn’t exactly do that.  All I learned was that you won’t know the program until you start in the morning, it will be on note cards on a bulletin board someplace, I have to copy it down and I have to keep checking back to see what has been cancelled/rearranged/moved.  It all worked, but I don’t know that it was a smoothly-orchestrated OpenSpace experience.  I survived it, including the awesome restaurant-finding junket that night.

It’s also clear that Code Camp was not an Open Spaces creation.  There’s more to learn.

I have a friend who organizes movie and discussion nights and tells people “whatever you bring will be perfect.”  It is always great when everyone brings bread or dessert.  It just doesn’t matter.  It made organizing events effortless.  So in Austin’s honor, I shall lighten up.

Now, my initial interest in MindCamp 2.0 is not that it is a 24–hour overnight event.  I’m interested because cool people organized and attended the last one.  I figure that, since it is about 14 streets from my home, I can always return to the comfort of my own bed.  Or I can validate my pajamahideen credentials and do the sleep-over.  Well … having an exit seems like a good strategy, especially since I want to junket down to IIW (possibly another open-space event) shortly thereafter.

Also, now that I know Dave Winer is considering it and Scoble will be there, along with Alex Barnett, Nancy, Ted, and others, I am starting to thing of topics that interest me and that I want to put on the wiki.  That has me want to pitch the following topics:

• OPML 2.0 Luv (and I promise not to talk with Dave about when a specification fails the Einstein simplicity test, though my experience is identified here and I have some concerns about underspecified “standards” here).
• Making Computing Inviting and Satisfying.  Now that you know how to load your iPod and Flickr your cell phone, if you were curious about the software that makes all of this possible, how would you find the on-ramp?  There were once radio amateurs, what is there for computer science?  Are the wonder years of hobbyist computing behind us?  Is it all about games (and why not, that might be reason enough)?
• Major Ahahs on the road to understanding computers, software, and programming.  What are some of the thickest mental barriers you had and what was it like when you finally got a clue?  I have many of those, including ones not even recognized yet.  How did you gain a valuable lesson and learning experience?  Did you give up or are you still struggling?

Too geeky?  Well, what can I say.  I’m looking forward to what others have to offer.

I wanted to say “camp fu” for all of the different camps that abound these days.  Not being too sure that this was suitable for kiddies and the office, I checked out the term.  My first experience of -fu construction was with drive-in fu, courtesy of Joe Bob Briggs, starting after I moved to Silicon Valley in 1992.  I am startled to learn that it has devolved to “expert practice of a skill.”  It may fit the open-space camp model the same way that Ben Rady bridges to the Agile Manifesto from the Bruce Lee quote, “Be formless … shapeless like water. … Be water, my friend.”  Reassured that there is no grammatical connection with fubar and snafu (derived from “fudged up” according to one song lyric), I am heartened that the designation is probably apt.  Now if we can just cut back on the 2.0 fu.  Or is that fu 2.0?

Update 2006-04-15: I misspelled Ponzi’s name in the photo caption.