BlogCamp!

I went, buzzed around, and because I was covering it, didn't get to listen to anything except for one little limerick by Aparna Ray. Were there really just 200 people at the BlogCamp? That was supposed to be the upper limit of the number of participants, because as Kiruba says, "After that, it's either too chaotic, or we'll have to induce structure to make things more orderly." And at this event, asking for order and structure is blasphemous.

What excited me was that in a BlogCamp, if you're in the audience, and can't believe how boring the speaker is, you can actually stand up and show him how wide you can yawn. Fun, but that's a long way off. The rules have been broken for you, but it takes a while to relish that freedom. While some people sat with legs crossed on the table, some others hissed "How rude!" on the side. Teachers in school have trained almost irreversibly to only speak when we're spoken to. You wanna say something? You raise your hand, buster.

But the unconference did show signs of weaning its participants away from the usual conference etiquette. I caught at least half the people bringing their lunch plate to the table; those who didn't have probably had bad (and common) experiences of sambar splashes on their keyboard (No, drumstick sambar was last week. This week T,H, and N have slurped onion sambar).

There were bloggers who talked about pet fish and pandas, fashion (unrelated to the pandas), rural connectivity, disaster management, sleeping on the job while your blog earns for you, body shopping, blog journalism, podcasting, firewall skirting, how to avenge those that steal your content, how to increase your hitcount (I need to learn a thing or two), how to be likeable.

But today, a certain sense of wooziness was perceptible as soon as I entered the room. When I asked if it was post-lunch ennui, someone corrected me. “Post Beach House party booziness!”

I wish I’d hung around a little longer, but as soon as too many people started noticing my CNN IBN mike logo and saying "Why don't you attend my talk on a very pathbreaking concept," I decided it was time to leave. After all, they know that a little appearance in the media can do much for your blog. At the same time, I did know of some interesting bloggers like Amit Agarwal only through TV. It’s not surprising that blog-branding and promotion was one of the talks. But I was primarily looking out for blogs with a cause, and found Osama Manzar. He doesn’t blog himself, but came from Delhi to ask bloggers to be responsible in their writing—in that they don’t just detail their breakfast menu, but write of what they see in their travels. “Not take Coca Cola to the villages, but bring the sherbet to the city,” he said. His Digital Empowerment Foundation searches for solutions to bridge the digital divide. They’re the guys that awarded the now quiet and bitter youth, Raghav Mahto, for his enterprise in running his own radio station from rural Bihar.

I expected less tolerance for clichés in such an environment, but politeness and a will to be democratic let some sessions unclocked. Of course, it’s also probably just my patience that needs work. But being at the BlogCamp (even for a few hours) was great— you can almost hear the whirring of minds. And it’s a place where you meet so many you’ve only just read before. Even for those who spend more time in the virtual world than in the real one, shaking the hand of your favourite URL can put you in a great mood.