Backchannel Buddies

Following CocoaDevHouse Amsterdam and just before Barcamp Amsterdam II I was considering the spate of unconferences and meetups that I have been to in Amsterdam recently.  Having done just a little organising and mainly attending, my network of wonderful local and international geeky friends is growing.

A friend we met at CocoaDevHouse Amsterdam commented he didn't really like the idea of a virtual Barcamp held in Second Life.  Whilst I can't wait to spend the next year or so playing with Second Life, I agree that meeting people in RL is perhaps much more conducive to actual useful networking; or just making friends. And sure; I may change my mind about that once I have spent long enough in SL.

CocoaDevHouse Amsterdam though told me something else.  The IRC channel we were using to talk to people who weren't in Amsterdam had a fair few inhabitants.  Not all of them were always up for the (at times) nonsensical chat coming out of our RL venue.  Their remote chat was not so virtual.  We of course had a projector beaming the IRC channel activities onto the wall for all to see.   The "backchannel" buddies some of whom it seems knew each other very well, could also get to know us, and in a way we got to know them.   The second thing was that IRC purposefully provided in a real space isn't really a 'back' channel; at times their activity was very much at the forefront of the unconference. We were watching them as much as they watched us.  Not sure what this means for more traditional conference environments where the backchannel exists as an 'alternative' to the main event. It seems at the recent Media Forum in London that the conference organisers very much valued the role a backchannel can play. As well as providing their own 'frontchannel' it seems other participants also scoured more disparate backchannels on blogs and other sites.  The key question here is 'Who's watching who?'

Image: BBC

Tags: cocoadevhouse, cocoadevhouseamsterdam, unconference, barcampsecondlife, geek, irc, backchannel, frontchannel.

Comments

[Blake Burris]

Katie,
It was cool to see the regular IRC channel gang participating in CDH Amsterdam and fun doing the video welcome message. Thanks for all the work you put into making it happen!