This last weekend was BarCampDC 2 and from all accounts I’ve heard it sounds like everyone really enjoyed themselves and learned a lot.

The Center for Digital Imaging Arts at Boston University generously donated their space for us to use and boy did we use it.  We got about 150 people in there.

We had 5 rooms and at one point 6 rooms with sessions all going at the same time.  There were sessions from everything from MySQL Optimization to Juggling to Web Education.

I just want to thank all of you the sponsored, attended, and helped organized.  You guys ROCK!! It was you guys that made this event possible.   There were so many people who gave in order for this event to happen.

All of this really shows how together we are in our goal of making the DC area one of the most kick ass technology and entrepreneurial centers on the East coast if not the country as a whole.

By the way, check out the awesome article that Kim Hart of the Washington Post wrote about the event.

So… the question is, when should we have the next one?

(Photo by Joe Logon in the session “CEO Problems”)

The community has come together in an amazing way.  We’ve pulled toether 30 different sponsors from the Greater Washington DC area/regioin together for the event. That rocks!  Go guys!

The vast array of support just shows how far we’ve come and how as a whole we really want to see eachother succeed.

If you’re interested in who the AWESOME folks are that are sponsoring, check out our BarCamp wiki page.

We’re going to be opening up a waiting list tonight.  If you want to go and werern’t able to get a spot, just register for the waiting list and we’ll let you know if space opens up.

We’re still looking for sponsors.  E-mail me if you’re interested – justin@clearspring.com

We are looking to do it around the end of September or early October.  We are NOT looking for RSVPs yet.  We are looking to nail down a venue first.

If you’d be interested in hosting BarCampDC2 or if you’re interested in sponsoring, e-mail me at justin@clearspring.com.

I think I speak for everyone when I say that BarCamp DC was an absolute blast. After the event, a few of us started chatting about what we could have next to bring the community together.
Today, I’m pleased to announce WidgetDevCamp DC. It’s another unconfrence, similar to BarCamp, but based off of the DevCamp model. There will be opportunity for learning and sharing about widget development, a time for widget designing and hacking, as well as sharing your demos with the group.

The event is currently in the development stages. When more solid details become available, they’ll be announced here.

Right now we’re looking for a venue and sponsors. If you’d be interested in either, please get in touch with me.

Oh… make sure that you sign up for the WidgetDevCamp Google Group so that we can keep in touch with you.

One thing that I took away from BarCamp DC was that there is a really awesome tech community in the Washington DC area. It may be spread across a number of groups. It may be in multiple states. Regardless, there is an awesome technology community that exists.

The question I and a number of others had was how can we bring this community together. We need one place online where the community can go to chat with one another and keep up with what’s going on. It’d aggregate a lot of information from other sites. My esteemed DC colleagues agreed.

I’m very happy to announce the launch of the DC Technology Network. It is a social networking site powered by Ning. While the site is very primitive (or beta) and still evolving, I think it’s a fun and interesting way for us to all stay in touch and maintain that awesome feeling that existed at BarCamp DC.

So… if you live in the Washington DC metro area (or formerly lived in the area) and want to stay in touch with your fellow local geeks, PLEASE SIGN UP for the DC Technology Network.

Have you signed up? What do you think? How can we make this more useful?

Joe and I talked after and we thought it’d be cool to get an online thread going about what kind of online television shows people are watching.

I watch (in no particular order)…

• Diggnation
• The Totally Rad Show
• Webb Alert
• Wine Library TV
• Ask A Ninja
• TikiBar TV
• The Merlin Show
• Wallstrip
• The GigaOm Show
• 30 Seconds with that Phone Guy
  

What do you watch?  Leave me a comment.  Write a blog post about it.    I don’t have cable tv so I wanna hear about what new shows I should be watching.

I’d love to hear from as many people as possible.

It’d be especially cool to hear from folks that were at BarCamp DC.  Matt, Jason, Jackson, Cindy, Patrick,  Samantha, Brian… tag you’re it.  Post about your favorite online tv shows and then tag  more people.

Maybe you don’t watch much online tv.  If that’s the case, post about why and what’s missing.  What would make it a better experience?

It’s a weekly overview of all technology events that are happening in the Washington DC area.

Ross does a really great job of being clued into what’s going on with the DC technology community and listing it on the site.  He will often have events on there that I’ve never heard of.

There is a RSS feed for syndication.  Hopefully there will be hCard support sometime soon.

So there is really no excuse to be bored at home.  There is always something going on for you to check out.  This site is a key resource.

But now that BarCamp DC is over (until the next one), the question is how can you keep the energy going.

There are some great meet ups and groups that I love that you should check out:

Refresh DC – It is a gathering of Web development and design professionals who want to learn more about their craft. Every month there is a speaker who shares their knowledge about a topic. There is a great time of community and hanging out after words at a bar. Sometimes there is even free food. It is organized by one of the BarCamp DC lead organizers Jason Garber.

Social Media Club – It is a gathering of technologists, marketers, and online strategists who enjoy discussing all things Social Media. It meets every month and is a source of great community.

Wash. DC Web Standards Meetup – This is more of an informal group of folks who have an interest in Web standards. The attendees range from people who read W3C specs for fun to novices who are eager to learn more. It is a great opportunity to pass on Web Standards knowledge and get in discussions about the future of standards.

What groups do you attend? How do you suggest we keep the energy and excitement going from BarCamp DC? Do you have any suggestions for new events that we can have? I’m already thinking about FacebookDevCamp and WidgetDevCamp.

Update: Oh oh oh…  I forgot to mention that Startup Weekend DC is coming up.  This is will be a great follow up some of you who were at BarCamp DC.

Brian Williams

“If anything, I think it was too full — or too short. There were so many great topics to cover and good people to lead discussions, I felt like we could have filled 3 days.”

Jared Goralnick

“Not since the heyday of Netpreneur have there been so many people in one DC room so excited about what’s happening online. This was evidenced by the high level of conversation, the community-willingness to share, and the pure geekery of the attendees (everywhere I turned were MacBooks, iPhones, live bloggers, and people uploading photos to Flickr).”

Russell Heimlich

“There were so many interested attendees that many had to be turned away at the door. Wow! I guess the DC tech community has been secretly yearning for a BarCamp to pop up in the area… I had a blast at BarCamp DC and can’t wait until they hold another one (I think I heard the next one would be in January), hopefully in a bigger space. I already know what my next topic will be.”

Jesse Thomas – “BarCampDC was awesome!!!”

Tom Bridge

“This weekend at the downtown offices of Fleishman Hillard, 100 or so geeks gathered for BarCamp to talk about matters technological. I know what you’re thinking already, “Geeks, inside on a weekend? Shocking!” But it’s more than that. So many things are happening on the web these days, the advent of the true mobile web, the adoption of portable identities, people creating content and sharing, and a lot of that is happening here in our backyard as well as out on the west coast.”

Zvi Band

“Attended my first (as well as DC’s first) BarCamp. It was an awesome experience. Not only did I learn a lot, but I met a great crowd of people. It was fascinating to discover a small but thriving community of similar web-heads…”

Leslie Bradshaw

“This weekend, Jesse and I attended the [first?] BarCamp held in DC. Met some super cool people, learned some very useful things (namely, at the: Google Analytics session, the widget session a la Clearspring and the Grids/systems session)… “

Nguyet -

“Overall, there were about 118 people attended. It was intimate. I’m proud to say that 200 OK were one of the sponsors…”

To celebrate our success, a bunch of went to get Maryland crabs for lunch today.