Don’t let the grass roots get mown down by the PR machine

I signed up for BarCampLondon2 yesterday. Yet when I checked my mail this morning I had an email from Bethen. Bethen seems to work for a company called Octane PR who, unsurprisingly, represent BT. Bethen reminded me that the details of the event had been updated and maybe I wanted to check the page.

This maybe doesn’t sound too bad, until you realise that I never signed up with this email address, as far as I know it isn’t really listed any place any more. If that wasn’t a bit annoying at the bottom of the email was a “News Alert” :

January 23, 2007

BT BACKS INNOVATION BY SPONSORING BARCAMP LONDON

As part of its commitment to driving innovation in technology at every level, BT has announced it’s the lead sponsor of BarCamp London 2007.

The event, which will be held at BT Centre, London, on February 17 and 18, 2007, is the second to be held in London and is part of a worldwide programme of conferences that includes Los Angeles, Montreal and Seoul.

BarCamp London brings together the UK’s technology community to share ideas and learn about technology in an open environment. These include attendees from design, usability, marketing/PR, digital agency work and venture capital backgrounds, as well as developers and programmers.

The BarCamp rules are very clear and create an environment where there are no spectators, only participants: everyone who attends is expected to present, give a demo, lead a session or support the event in some way. This helps to get everyone involved, but also creates more of a community atmosphere. First time attendees have to make a presentation or lead a discussion.

Gavin Patterson, group managing director consumer at BT Retail said: “As a company, we’re driving innovation in the technology sector, both for businesses and consumers. BarCamp is at the heart of this and brings together some of the most talented people in the industry, creating an environment where they can share, discuss and develop the latest technology and services, which is why we’re sponsoring the latest event in London.”

Obviously, I work for Yahoo! who hosted the last BarCampLondon. However, I don’t remember us making such a fuss about it. We were part of the write up in .net magazine, which was nice but I thought we let the event take it’s course. BT have already upset me with this, I really hope they don’t try and stamp any more corporateness on the event. I’ve been to a few BT hosted events which have been fine, so fingers crossed.

And, if it is just me not seeing Yahoo’s own PR machine, let me know. I do care if I’m wrong, I work for them, they don’t own me.

Technorati Tags:
barcamp, barcamplondon, barcamplondon2, londonevents