Impressions of TweetCamp

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?