CareerCamp International

** Want help organizing your own unconference? Comment or email me at [email protected]

CareerCamp Founder, Douglas E. Welch, shares CareerCamp (http://careercampinternational.org) with the attendees of the California Placement Association (http://calplacement.org/) at their annual 2015 conference in San Luis Obispo.

He discusses What is CareerCamp?, how it might be used in your organization and takes you through an example of a Day at CareerCamp.

Transcript:

These are some of the tools we use to actually organize. People often ask me, "How often do we meet in person to organize a CareerCamp?" We don't. We meet almost entirely online, up until the day of the event. We use Google docs for all our collaboration. We have actually had live brainstorming sessions in the same Google Doc, literally with all of us typing at once in the Doc to collect up information. we use Wordpress.com for our blogs, which is free. Evenbrite - free for any free event. Twitter, Facebook and social media. They're all free. Mailchimp is a mailing list, email mailing list system which we use for free up to 10,000 names, something like that. Those are some of your tools you can make the best use of. Want to know more about me? [email protected]. CarerCampInternational.org. If you visit the web site there are 2 pages on there - Why Should I Organize a CareerCamp? and What is CareerCamp? which sort of encapsulates what I've said here today and so you can check all that out.

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What is CareerCamp and Career Camp International?

CareerCamp is a community organized, career-focused, unconference which calls upon local communities and people to share their knowledge, expertise and other important information on developing yourself and your career.

What is an unconference?

Unconferences are self-organizing conferences, similar to many professional conferences, but instead of hiring well-known, professional speakers, they call on the attendees themselves to provide the content and focus for the event. Every person who attends is highly encouraged to present on some topic deeply important to them or, barring that, to facilitate an open breakout session or round table discussion or even just to engage and converse with their fellow attendees between presentations. A few organizers band together to find a venue for the event, recruit sponsors and invite attendees, but the focus of the unconference is driven solely by the attendees.

Some might question the usefulness of presentations by their peers, but we have found that there is an enormous amount of real-world expertise available in each and every local community. CareerCamp utilizes a format that draws out that expertise and benefits everyone. CareerCamp (and other unconferences) provide a structure and an opportunity to share this expertise in ways that traditional conferences do not. Additionally, CareerCamps also attract career development professionals who can use CareerCamp as a way of introducing themselves to a new audience of potential clients.

How was CareerCamp developed?

The genesis of CareerCamp was found by attending BarCamp unconferences held around the world. CareerCamp founder, Douglas E. Welch, was a long time attendee of BarCamp, which is an event that embraces any topic, although it often leans toward technology. After seeing the success of BarCamp as a way to illuminate and educate within a community, Welch applied the unconference concept to the specific world of Career Development.

CareerCamp International
http://careercampinternational.org

CareerCampSCV (Santa Clarita Valley)
http://careercampscv.wordpress.com

Douglas E. Welch
http://DouglasEWelch.com

** Want help organizing your own unconference? Comment or email me at [email protected]

CareerCamp Founder, Douglas E. Welch, shares CareerCamp (http://careercampinternational.org) with the attendees of the California Placement Association (http://calplacement.org/) at their annual 2015 conference in San Luis Obispo.

He discusses What is CareerCamp?, how it might be used in your organization and takes you through an example of a Day at CareerCamp.

Transcript:

It's not my desire to be -- to become a billionaire from running unconferences. I think that the concept has tons of power and through my career writing that I've done, this is an outreach from that. I just want to see them happen. And it sounds again, hippy-dippy, but I want to see change. I want to have an effect on the world and this is one way that I can do it. I do need to find a champion at each of the places to do this, because it is their event. I will come in an give them all the support and teach them how to do it and help them facilitate and tell them what -- why this works and why this doesn't and all this stuff, and help with the technology and all that, but its really up to the person on-site who has to champion it, get some other co-chairs together so that they don't do all the work and work from the regard.

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What is CareerCamp and Career Camp International?

CareerCamp is a community organized, career-focused, unconference which calls upon local communities and people to share their knowledge, expertise and other important information on developing yourself and your career.

What is an unconference?

Unconferences are self-organizing conferences, similar to many professional conferences, but instead of hiring well-known, professional speakers, they call on the attendees themselves to provide the content and focus for the event. Every person who attends is highly encouraged to present on some topic deeply important to them or, barring that, to facilitate an open breakout session or round table discussion or even just to engage and converse with their fellow attendees between presentations. A few organizers band together to find a venue for the event, recruit sponsors and invite attendees, but the focus of the unconference is driven solely by the attendees.

Some might question the usefulness of presentations by their peers, but we have found that there is an enormous amount of real-world expertise available in each and every local community. CareerCamp utilizes a format that draws out that expertise and benefits everyone. CareerCamp (and other unconferences) provide a structure and an opportunity to share this expertise in ways that traditional conferences do not. Additionally, CareerCamps also attract career development professionals who can use CareerCamp as a way of introducing themselves to a new audience of potential clients.

How was CareerCamp developed?

The genesis of CareerCamp was found by attending BarCamp unconferences held around the world. CareerCamp founder, Douglas E. Welch, was a long time attendee of BarCamp, which is an event that embraces any topic, although it often leans toward technology. After seeing the success of BarCamp as a way to illuminate and educate within a community, Welch applied the unconference concept to the specific world of Career Development.

CareerCamp International
http://careercampinternational.org

CareerCampSCV (Santa Clarita Valley)
http://careercampscv.wordpress.com

Douglas E. Welch
http://DouglasEWelch.com

** Want help organizing your own unconference? Comment or email me at [email protected]

CareerCamp Founder, Douglas E. Welch, shares CareerCamp (http://careercampinternational.org) with the attendees of the California Placement Association (http://calplacement.org/) at their annual 2015 conference in San Luis Obispo.

He discusses What is CareerCamp?, how it might be used in your organization and takes you through an example of a Day at CareerCamp.

Transcript:

I do want to reinforce the venue. While we have a near-perfect venue at the University Center at College of the Canyons with electronic classrooms, a nice lobby area, beautiful furniture and a beautiful new buildings, It's great! It's not required. It's certainly not required and I don't want you to think that's required. it can happen in the middle of an open field. it really can. It's the concept of an unconference that's powerful, not where you hold it. And, you know, sometimes you may have need to start out small. Maybe start out with, you know, somethings that not perfect, but you can build it into something that gains -- everything you gain should be important. BarCamps -- the one's I attended -- the more general unconferences, got bogged down in this concept that everyone wanted to give a T-shirt away to attendees. Well, that costs money. It started to become an issue. "I don't need another T-shirt! I just want to go to the conference. Can we just make that..." So, be aware of that. Be wary of those types of things. Don't add encumbrances that don't add a value to your unconference. Because that's really what it's all about. It's about what people learn and the people that come.

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What is CareerCamp and Career Camp International?

CareerCamp is a community organized, career-focused, unconference which calls upon local communities and people to share their knowledge, expertise and other important information on developing yourself and your career.

What is an unconference?

Unconferences are self-organizing conferences, similar to many professional conferences, but instead of hiring well-known, professional speakers, they call on the attendees themselves to provide the content and focus for the event. Every person who attends is highly encouraged to present on some topic deeply important to them or, barring that, to facilitate an open breakout session or round table discussion or even just to engage and converse with their fellow attendees between presentations. A few organizers band together to find a venue for the event, recruit sponsors and invite attendees, but the focus of the unconference is driven solely by the attendees.

Some might question the usefulness of presentations by their peers, but we have found that there is an enormous amount of real-world expertise available in each and every local community. CareerCamp utilizes a format that draws out that expertise and benefits everyone. CareerCamp (and other unconferences) provide a structure and an opportunity to share this expertise in ways that traditional conferences do not. Additionally, CareerCamps also attract career development professionals who can use CareerCamp as a way of introducing themselves to a new audience of potential clients.

How was CareerCamp developed?

The genesis of CareerCamp was found by attending BarCamp unconferences held around the world. CareerCamp founder, Douglas E. Welch, was a long time attendee of BarCamp, which is an event that embraces any topic, although it often leans toward technology. After seeing the success of BarCamp as a way to illuminate and educate within a community, Welch applied the unconference concept to the specific world of Career Development.

CareerCamp International
http://careercampinternational.org

CareerCampSCV (Santa Clarita Valley)
http://careercampscv.wordpress.com

Douglas E. Welch
http://DouglasEWelch.com

** Want help organizing your own unconference? Comment or email me at [email protected]

CareerCamp Founder, Douglas E. Welch, shares CareerCamp (http://careercampinternational.org) with the attendees of the California Placement Association (http://calplacement.org/) at their annual 2015 conference in San Luis Obispo.

He discusses What is CareerCamp?, how it might be used in your organization and takes you through an example of a Day at CareerCamp.

Transcript:

I hadn't thought of that, honestly, when I decide to these, but as I started to do them -- you know, again, there is a term, empowerment, right? It's beat into the ground. It doesn't really have -- it has a negative connotation these days, really, but that is truly what you see with these events. You have people who are long-term unemployed who don't feel they have any control in their life and for 1 day they control something. And I have seen people -- and this is so important to me and kind of an effect I didn't know I was going to have. You see people come in beaten down and signing in and they have their coffee and stuff. By the end of the day they're recharged. They're ready to go out and and do the good fight again. You've given them something back. You've given them a little bit of empowerment so that they know "You can do this! Hopefully we've given you some hard information you can use." I often say when I am troubleshooting something as a computer person, I'm not done until I am out of ideas. Well, a lot of people come in out of ideas. They're out of idea They're out of energy. If you can give some more ideas and some more energy back to them. They can then go out and make their career better for themselves.

-------

What is CareerCamp and Career Camp International?

CareerCamp is a community organized, career-focused, unconference which calls upon local communities and people to share their knowledge, expertise and other important information on developing yourself and your career.

What is an unconference?

Unconferences are self-organizing conferences, similar to many professional conferences, but instead of hiring well-known, professional speakers, they call on the attendees themselves to provide the content and focus for the event. Every person who attends is highly encouraged to present on some topic deeply important to them or, barring that, to facilitate an open breakout session or round table discussion or even just to engage and converse with their fellow attendees between presentations. A few organizers band together to find a venue for the event, recruit sponsors and invite attendees, but the focus of the unconference is driven solely by the attendees.

Some might question the usefulness of presentations by their peers, but we have found that there is an enormous amount of real-world expertise available in each and every local community. CareerCamp utilizes a format that draws out that expertise and benefits everyone. CareerCamp (and other unconferences) provide a structure and an opportunity to share this expertise in ways that traditional conferences do not. Additionally, CareerCamps also attract career development professionals who can use CareerCamp as a way of introducing themselves to a new audience of potential clients.

How was CareerCamp developed?

The genesis of CareerCamp was found by attending BarCamp unconferences held around the world. CareerCamp founder, Douglas E. Welch, was a long time attendee of BarCamp, which is an event that embraces any topic, although it often leans toward technology. After seeing the success of BarCamp as a way to illuminate and educate within a community, Welch applied the unconference concept to the specific world of Career Development.

CareerCamp International
http://careercampinternational.org

CareerCampSCV (Santa Clarita Valley)
http://careercampscv.wordpress.com

Douglas E. Welch
http://DouglasEWelch.com