Andru Edwards on Mind Camp

The right kind of conferences act as a brain dump between participants where everyone goes home feeling re-energized with a new sense of focus about whatever their chosen passions happen to be. With all the big corporate tradeshow mills slowly losing relevance and disappearing, a new type of conference is on the rise; the overnight camp. 24 hours of focused participation in a formatless presentation from participants. The most high visible of these camps is the invitation only Foo Camp hosted by Tim O’Reilly. Foo Camp indirectly begat Bar Camp and Tag Camp in the Bay Area, with some Seattleites creating Mind Camp in late October 2005. Andru Edwards of Gear Live, organizer of the inaugural Mind Camp talked with Ponzi after the event, discussing his views on the success of the event and how camp style conferences are changing the way people meet offline.