InfoCamp is an unconference for the information community. Started in Seattle by a bunch of friends and colleagues in 2007, it quickly grew from 100 participants and 16 sessions, to 300 participants, 51 sessions and two InfoParties.

This year, a bunch of excitable UC Berkeley Information School students decided to organize an InfoCamp to share some of their crazy ideas, and to invite others interested in user experience, information architecture, interaction design, user-centered design, information design, librarianship, online search, information management, informatics, and related fields in the Bay Area to share in the fun. We’ve been helped along the way by Kristen, Rachel, Andy and the other great founder-folks in Seattle, and hope that this is the start of a long and fruitful partnership.

The format

InfoCamp has no pre-determined session topics or presenters, other than a keynote and plenary session. You, the participants, create and lead most of the sessions! You determine the topic and format of your session, and pitch your session idea to the group, and sign up for a time slot. The exact schedule will be created as we go.

The purpose of this format is to encourage collaboration, interaction, discussion, and real-time innovation. The benefits of this format include the immediacy of the topics – the sessions didn’t have to be submitted months ahead of time – and the fun, exciting (and a bit chaotic) feeling of being part of an event that’s being led by everyone.

Just because sessions are planned on the day, doesn’t mean you can’t start thinking and planning with your peers on what you can talk about or facilitate on the day. And don’t limit yourself to a traditional discussion session. One of the most successful sessions in the past was ‘Interface Off’ that was held at InfoCamp 2007 where the Zaaz team presented a design challenge in which session participants were asked to satisfy the needs of a ‘client’ and design a user interface to meet the client’s needs. Other ideas include:

• gather people to discuss a common interest
• solicit feedback on a design
• demo a half-baked product
• organize a panel
• present research findings
• set up a debate on a controversial topic
• start a conversation group
• discuss solutions to a problem
• brainstorm an idea

Schedule

Each session in 45 minutes long – except for one lightning talks session where we’ll have four 8 minute presentations around two core themes: information governance and policy, and human-centred interaction and design. Our keynote speaker is the brilliant Erin McKean, lexicographer and dress analyst extraordinaire who will talk about what it’s like to be in the presence of so many new words. After we end the event with prizes and final session madness at 5pm, we’ll saunter down the road for a not-to-be-missed InfoParty.

What are you waiting for? Get one of the limited tickets for InfoCamp Berkeley 2010 from EventBrite and join us on Facebook for more.