Posts Tagged ‘barcamps’

I just wanted to announce to the world the great success that I am witnessing from PrivacyCamp last weekend. This event took place at the Center for American Progress Action Fund in Washington, DC and brought together a committed group of around 60-70 individuals to discuss the balance between privacy, security, and transparency in this burgeoning age of free and easy access to information.

Two of the four sessions that I attended have resulted in action that is carrying on past the Camp and both seem to be accelerating in their growth and reach. They are the development of a Communicating with Congress Camp that we are beginning to organize, as discussed here and the early stages of an organization called Privacy Commons, that will create a set of templatable contracts for Privacy Policies, akin to the great work done by Creative Commons.

While I can’t claim to be any serious veteran of barcamps, this is the fourth one that I’ve attended and I’ve helped to organize two of those four. All of them have been focused on government and technology in some way and there is always a discussion around how best to carry the conversation forward once the camp is over. PrivacyCamp accomplished this better than I have seen before, and that deserves recognition. Now, if we can only discern what it is that made that happen, we’ll be able to have more productive barcamps here in DC in the future.