BarCamp Nashville.

For those of you scratching your heads, saying WhatWhat Nashville, I sympathize. Personally, I don’t do bars or camping. That leaves Nashville, and there’s a lot in Nashville I don’t do either. If I hadn’t gotten so much out of its kindred event, PodCamp Nashville, I wouldn’t have even considered it. But it turns out it’s an open source geek fest – somewhere between a formal conference for gear-heads and a happening.

Highlights for me:

• The people. Lots of smiling, friendly techies. The majority young… male… white… etc. But still a good representation of females, plus a modest representation of boomers, and, more significant, a sense of welcome for all.
• Great schwag. Is that how you spell it? My generation once called this stuff freebies. I’d brought my knitting in my backpack, but immediately transferred it to the excellent tote. It’s a keeper.
• Decent coffee, plus unsweet ice tea (my favorite) and yummy muffins.
• Hanging out with my web diva buddies. They came in force.
• Fabulous presentation on Public Relations 2.0 (“The Deer Have Guns Now”). If I don’t see it recapped elsewhere, I’ll do it myself.

Things I hope to see next year:

• More women speakers (not just in a session about women in technology, though that was a great start).
• Same venue. Parking aside, I liked it more than PodCamp’s Cannery Ballroom.
• Sessions on Drupal. If there were any, I couldn’t tell. But the site was done in Drupal and Centre{Source} was one of the main sponsors, so perhaps there were and I missed them.

Speaking of sponsors, egad were they generous. The whole thing was free, and they had wonderful prizes. So while I don’t usually do this, here’s a shout out to the sponsors I remember (in no particular order):

• Griffin Technology (the amazing Dave Delaney’s new gig)
• Centre{Source}
• Dolphini Networks
• Emma
• Zoe Creative Services

And of course a big round of applause for all the people who made this happen. You all don’t just rock. You are movers and shakers. I’m even giving Twitter a second chance, thanks to you.

*For those wondering about #bcn08, it’s a Twitter thing.

To celebrate this august confluence of events, here are a few street views near-and-dear to my heart.

• My church
• My work (Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center)
• Where Trader Joe’s will be

The whole day was jam-packed with inspiring speakers — covering a surprisingly wide range of topics. It wasn’t just technical how-to, though that was covered, and covered well. There were also great talks on Search Engine Optimization, marketing, presentations and even Twitter.

My only criticism is that there were no women presenting. But I wouldn’t be surprised if there aren’t many women podcasters yet in this part of the world. Hopefully there will be more — very soon. And if PodCamp is coming to your part of the world, I’ve got one word for you: go.

Thank you so much to all the great presenters, organizers and supporters, including Emma and Griffin. You wore this web diva out, but boy did you make me happy.

According to their press release, “Participants of PodCamp Nashville are guaranteed to return to their offices revitalized and excited about what New Media has to offer. Students, hobbyists and professionals are encouraged to attend to network and to learn. Experience with blogging or podcasting are not requirements to participate.”

Sounds like a winner to me.