Barcamp Baltics 2008 promises to be the biggest ever unconference of bloggers from post-Soviet space in Riga, Feb 8-10 2008. We expect more than 400 people from ALL former Soviet republics (we managed to get some travel funding from Open Society Institute so we’d even be getting people from Central Asia to show up!).There are a few things that are unique to Barcamp Baltics model. First, we’ll experiment with funding the best commercial and non-commercial proposals for new projects from participants (something we dubbed “Innovation Incubator”). The point here is to facilitate cross-border collaborative projects between, say, bloggers in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. Second, we’ve built a social network for the event (network.barcamp.lv) - and while there are two full months left till the event, there are already 500 members there! Yet our greatest objective is to get not only people from former Soviet republics, but from all over the world to show up, to make it even more international. The most of presentations to be in English and Russian, like here.

In the beginning, I was very supportive of Podcamp West - we even added a link to it as something we suppoprt on our Web 2point2 Unconference Blog with other sponsors. While I was a bit upset that Vic Podcaster did not keep his promises to us for promoting Web 2point2 and he did not show up at the unconference to podcast as he promised and he did not bring his EVDO wifi router despite his promises to do so, I was really upset when I got an email from Eric Rice yesterday. His email was the first I had heard about being put on a panel with him and Matthew Wayne Selznick. Not only was I not invited to do this, I was never notified that it was happening until I received the urgent email from Eric - if he had not been upset with the panel description and reached out to me, I would never even have known about it. My plan was to attend for part of today (SAT) and then watch Jerry Rice have his number retired tomorrow at Candlestick Park.

Chris and I are headed to Boston and wanted to put a couple of events on your calendar: First stop - support our friends over at SNCR as they hold their Inaugural Research Symposium and Awards Celebration. There are a few seats left for this event and I am told if you register online at http://tinyurl.com/hqmom and use the promo code ‘NCR20′, you will save almost 20%! Then we will join our buddies at Topaz Partners who have offered to co-host the first ‘official’ meeting of Social Media Club Boston on Thursday, November 2nd from 6pm to 8:30pm. We are currently looking for a venue* in downtown Boston (Topaz is located in Woburn), so just put the date on your calendar for now and we will get an update to you shortly.

We like to focus on promoting 'unconference' like events here on the BrainJams community site, but I just learned of The New New Internet which is a traditional conference by trade, is coming to the Washington D.C. area.  The cool thing?  They added in two great unconference like features along with it; The New New Internet Conference Social Network, and the Web 2.0 Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) Unconference (this actually takes place on September 19th, the day before the conference).More details can be found on their website, but it looks to be a great gathering of minds on the East Coast to network with, and some insightful information being shared about this Web 2,0 thing.  

Unfortunately, due to low response we have decided to postpone the event. Other events are in the works so stay tuned!

The idea is simple.

• Option #1:  You have some knowledge. You would like to share that knowledge, so you come to CNET on Tuesday, September 19th and pay it forward. You leave knowing you have done something really nice and you will win the lotto next month. (Ok, so I can't really control that, but I believe in karma so let's think positive shall we?)
• Option #2: There is something you have been yearning to learn how to do. You put your name on our website and we see if we can find someone to help you out. You go home. You play with your new mad skills. You come back to the next Rent an Expert event and teach someone else. (Show. Do. Teach.) 

I am a big fan of the 'Show. Do. Teach.' philosophy and this past Thursday we had another opportunity to see it in action when we partnered up with the National Coalition on Deliberation and Dialogue ('NCDD') and held a BrainJams during their annual conference.  We had 42 participants with us for the day and ended up being our first event where the non-techies outnumbered the techies in the room (by about 7 to 1).  It was fun for me to be a part of as most of the folks in the room are not currently blogging or using the social media tools available today and left the event realizing just how much more they could be doing, and the amount of people they could be reaching if they started utilizing what was currently out there.  Seeing that gleam in their eyes got me all warm and fuzzy on the inside.   It was a great way to start off the NCDD conference and we are now in discussions to do more BrainJams with the folks at the NCDD, so stay tuned for the details as we hope to be coming to a city/town near you soon!  Cheers! 

The National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation is hosting BrainJams!: A Conversation on Technology presented by Chris Heuer, founder of BrainJam Workshops and Beth Kanter, Nonprofit Technology Consultant on Thursday, August 3rd at the Parc 55 Hotel in San Francisco. This all-day exploration of online technology and how it can be used by practitioners of dialogue & deliberation to enhance their work, offers an opportunity to learn directly from technologists who will join us for a day of demonstrations and conversations. These technologists, leaders in the cutting edge online technology often referred to as Web 2.0, will offer their expertise on a wide array of networking and collaboration tools (including Wikis, Blogs, Podcasts, Online Workspaces and Social Networks) through BrainJam’s signature "12 Five Minute Meetings" as well as a broader conversation using the World Café. With the goal of examining the opportunities provided by the many freely available Web 2.0 tools for both individuals and organizations, our BrainJam will explore several themes including:

I believe if you help others, good things will come back to you three fold. I believe if you let go of a little, you will gain a lot. I believe karma prevails in all situations. ——— Want to know who is testing karma tonight? Folks sharing bits of what they know at the Rent an Expert event being held at CNET’s offices in San Francisco. That’s who. These lovely people are donating their time and their expertise because they know good things come back around to those who help others succeed. As of this morning, our ‘experts’ have signed up to cover the following topics:

• Setting up a Word Press Blog - Chris Heuer, BrainJams
• Search Engine Optimization - Lawrence Coburn, RateItAll
• The Basics of Creating a Videoblog - Eddie Codel, GETV
• Smack’ ‘em (Community Building) - Jonas M Luster, Your Intarweb Going Commando
• The Secret to Kick-Ass BBQ - Eugene Eric Kim, Blue Oxen Associates
• Innovate to be great! - Cathryn Hrudicka, Creative Sage
• Publishing Globally to the Web - Arthur Law, Ion Global
• MindMapping with MindJet – Tom Blossom, MindJet
• Celestial videos/pictures for blogs, websites and sharing | A handy personal organizer - Rod Seddigh

Chris Heuer and Shel Holtz introduce the weekly New Media Release Podcast (‘NMRCast’) and explain the NMR working group; discussion of microformats and their role in the NMR; where we plan to go from here. You can download the podcast, or sign up for the RSS feed to get it and future shows automatically. (For automatic synchronization with your iPod or other digital player, you’ll also need a podcatcher such as Juice, DopplerRadio, iTunes or Yahoo! Podcasts, or an RSS aggregator that supports podcasts such as FeedDemon).If you would like to participate in the New Media Release conversations, please join the Google group.   Thank you Shel for all of your support!