Highlight Midwest

Not long after the dot com bust, O’Reilly Media gave the world Foo Camp.

Foo Camp was followed two years later by Socialtext’s variation known as BarCamp.

Soon barcamps started popping up all over the world, many in our own backyards including Des Moines, Kansas City, and Omaha. Other variations are also common now: ProductCamps, DemoCamps, PodCamps, even WordCamps — all based on two basic ideas that the web can be your conference organizer and cutting-edge information is better shared in an open environment instead of closing it off behind the walls of pricey trade shows.

And there’s an interesting side effect of events put together in this way: it turns out talented people tend to come and participate of their own accord. You don’t really need keynote speakers.

Recently, some of us who had been wondering what might happen if we applied some barcamp concepts to a regional event were lucky enough to run into some people at the the Kauffman Foundation who were open to the idea; they have been incredibly supportive, plain and simple.

As icing on the cake, we were only slightly later put in touch with the forward-thinking minds at Record Bar, including Steve Tulipana, who in addition to sponsoring the day time space for the Highlight Midwest experiment and being very supportive of the concept, has been involved in many other creative things.

…the end!

Fast forward to now, and we’re busy finishing up the details for Oct 29. We’re also looking forward to seeing you be a part of it.