Impressions of TweetCamp

Updated on June 28, 2009

An extremely enjoyable day is how I’d sum up my overall thoughts about TweetCamp London 09 which took place yesterday, June 27, in Richmond.

I reckon there were well over 100 people at this event, superbly organized by Farhan Rehman, Desigan Chinniah and Jon Bishop plus a host of contributor-organizers (the ones wearing dark blue t-shirts such as Matt O’Neill [photo] and Benjamin Ellis).

I was especially impressed by the excellent organization of the event. That’s down to the three organizers – I’d hire them to organize an event! – and all the helpers plus the sponsors without whom I don’t think TweetCamp could have happened.

According to the t-shirts (photo above by Adam Tinworth), those sponsors were PayPal – the event took place in the UK office of their parent company, eBay – Gumtree, Addlestones, mymuesli and Sun Startup Essentials.

I’ve recorded some thoughts in an Audiboo, below, but let me bullet-point some of my impressions.

• Excellent organization, as I’ve mentioned.
• The venue was great: good wifi but a seriously complicated WPA password, though.
• Terrific schwag in the goodies bag.
• The ‘paper wiki’ is an excellent concept but it didn’t really capture people’s imaginations. Hopefully creator Jon Bishop will explain his thinking sometime because it is a good idea.
• Everyone was well looked after in terms of refreshments (bacon butties to start, for instance, and an always-full Coke machine) and outstanding lunch with plenty to go round. Thanks again to the sponsors.
• Met loads of familiar faces plus an equal load of new ones: the essence of TweetCamp.
• Terrific conversation during the lunch period with Sarah Blow who sorted out my Tweetmeme plugin for WordPress and also ended my laptop sticker virginity.
• Equally great conversation with Chris Heuer who got what he wanted with a WordPress plugin to live-blog tweets.
• Another terrific conversation in the afternoon in a breakout group with James Cridland, Kate Arkless Gray and Jim Anning about the future and the role of social media such as Twitter. The answer, of course, is 42.
• Did I mention TweetCamp was well organized?