DemoCamp and Community

The buzz is building... TorCamp's DemoCamp5 was held last night at U of T's Bahen Centre for Information Technology to a full house of 141 attendees, the largest DemoCamp yet.

DemoCamp is the place to demo *working* software - we've seen things alpha release state to yesterday's mature 6-year old HP authentication app. But the real star is the crowd, and the real venue was upstairs at Molly Bloom's pub - where we gatherered afterwards for wings and GREAT conversation - and where I made a couple of excellent connections. It's this informal networking that is yielding all kinds of new collaborations... suddenly Toronto is on the radar, because TorCamp is growing organically at a rapid rate, principally on the energy and effort of its participants. At David Crow's invitation, we started in November with 50 people and have met at least monthly since them, each event bigger than the next. Makes me wonder how many will join us at TorCamp2 in May? Two hundred? I can't wait.

Joey DeVilla took some photos, and writes more about DemoCamp, including the great news that we'll be meeting at MaRS from now on, a permanent home for DemoCamp that can handle our growing crowd! You can also read about DemoCamp in Profit Magazine.

I'm all about community - can't help myself! I have formed ScrumToronto with Mike Bowler, helped hatch the ScrumAlliance with Ken Schwaber, recently formed the Toronto Agile Coaches group, and will facilitate at TorCamp2 in May. These groups show that great, productive teams can form anywhere - not just at the office. I definitely consider myself a member of the great TorCamp team.

Don't wait for community to happen where you are... get out there and make it! It
s easier than ever - people who think like you are blogging and tagging, so you can find them easily enough. Who knows what you'll get into... all you need to start is to invite some like-minded strangers to meet you at your favourite cafe for supper... then watch to see where it goes! For heaven's sake, TorCampers are starting to get involved with government thinktanks on ">culture and technology! Create a community and watch it go!