I attended my very first Bar Camp Orlando on Saturday to rub elbows with my fellow geeks. I will admit it wasn’t my normal crowd, I’m more front end and search marketing, and this is more backend design code / programming, but we all seem to have similar interests when you boil it down.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it turned out to be a really diverse group of topics and interests covered. Here was the lineup when I first arrived:

A theme I saw repeated throughout the day was an emphasis on volunteerism and giving back to the community. I was excited that the first presentation I attended spotlighted an up and coming organization called One Brick Orlando. This 503c non-profit is trying to take away the hassle of getting out there and giving back. If any of you have ever tried volunteering on your own for orgs such as Habitat for Humanity, you understand the time it takes to actually create a team and be qualified and registered to step in on a project. With One Brick, the organizer works out details of the event, and you can sign up as you have time available. I can’t vouch for it personally, but I will definitely be checking it out!

Visit http://orlando.onebrick.org/ for details

Of course another VERY popular session was presented by none other than the founder of Mymoustacheand.me, Derek Bender. No folks, not the iPad session I could care less about, but more importantly, HTML5 and the awesomeness thereof. Probably the best slideshow of the day included the “div soup” of Family Guy, Archer, and The Office. #mykindofpeople [Check out the slideshow here]

Packed House for "The Future of HTML5"

My favorite slide of the day!

And just to show that Bar Camp is not only about developers and drupal, the lectures varied dramatically with lectures such as “Conversational Karate” and “Usability for Websites”. I even attended participated in the session “You too Can SING!”, where we belted a few lines from Turn the Page:

Learn how to sing at BarCamp

Here I go, on the road again

Of course my favorite activity for the most part comes in the end with networking and few cold ones. It was great meeting everyone up in real life and discussing the iwebs with my geeky counterparts! I hope to see everyone again next year!

Geeks, nerds or dorks?

After a long day of API talk

my cohort @_happygolucky_

What were your thoughts? Did you enjoy this year more than last? What could they do to improve for the upcoming one? AND OF COURSE THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION…

Will you be attending National Foursquare Day?!

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