Are you going to Seattle Mind Camp 6.0, November 21-22, 2009?  I am!  I went last year and had a fantastic time – I met lots of new people, stayed up all night, and attended lots of great lectures.

It seems like this summer I haven’t been going to as many community events as I have in seasons past.  This event is one that I’m not going to miss, however, and neither should you!

Does anyone else think it’s weird that you can enter the terms

pathable seattle mind camp

into Google, and get four pages of results, NOT ONE of which is this page?

http://pathable.com/events/seattle-mind-camp

The Pathable home page for Seattle Mind Camp 5 has had over 100 attendees sign up, probably thousands of visits over the last couple weeks, and STILL doesn’t show up in Google – at all.

UPDATE: It gets stranger. A search on the terms “pathable seattle bar camp” returns the Pathable BarCamp page as the #1 result. Weird. I wonder what the difference is?

[11:30 AM] I arrived at the Synapse offices this morning about 10:45.  This space is FREAKING AMAZING -- wide open, about 120′ long by 60′ wide, and plenty of geek charm -- open ductwork, random exercise equipment laying around, unfinished walls.

There’s about 80 people here right now, and I’m happy to see several people I’ve met elsewhere in the startup scene, or via Twitter.

The session list is eclectic, humorous, and diverse -- some tech, but some stuff that is most decidedly NOT tech as well -- sessions on standup comedy, “how to be a winner” (thanks Tom!), dreaming, etc.

[11:37 AM] Excellent idea that someone should do a session on “How To Do A Session” -- for the newbies (like me), how are new to the whole Unconference concept, and would like to learn more and get more comfortable.

[11:52] And, we’re starting.   Andru Edwards just called everyone up for the opening thing.

[12:47 PM] Great series of icebreakers following the initial orientation, facilitated by Leif Hansen.  First was “Back to Back”, where you pick successive partners, stand back-to-back, and then Leif will ask a question and say “Front to Front!”.  Then you turn around and give your answer to your counterpart.  Then after about 30 seconds you pick a new partner, etc. etc.  Very fun.  This was followed by a series of “where are you on a set of two axes” -- creative/technical, geographical, place of birth, entrepreneurial/steady job, etc.

Finally we finished up with a massive game of rock-paper-scissors, with winners facing off.  The catch?  The losers had to cheer on the person they lost to, then the person THEY lost to, etc. etc.  A guy named Jeff won the whole shebang and got a dog-chewed tennis ball as a trophy.  Did I mention that there is a dog wandering around?

[1:41 PM] Lunch is served, courtesy of Ponti Seafood & Grill.  Sesame pasta salad, orzo, grilled chicken -- very tasty.  Lots of neat conversations are already happening all around the room, and ideas are sprouting like flowers after a rainstorm.

[1:43] Ran into Monica Guzman of The Big Blog -- she tells me that this Wednesday’s Big Blog meetup at Nana’s Soup House in Fremont will feature a special guest!

[2:55 PM] Just finished my first session -- a conversation about the intersection of technology, entrepreneurship, and activism.  Very stimulating discussion.  I learned about a program called 2-1-1 which lets people call in and get help -- phone-based human services initiative. Sarah Schacht, founder of Knowledge As Power, has offered to organize a meetup on December 16th to further the discussion, and Jacob Sayles of Office Nomads has offered to host the meeting. Visit http://seattlenettuesday.ning.com/ for more details.

[3:49 PM] Session two complete: “Winners Never Lose”, a tongue-in-cheek conversation with Tom Music.  It occurs to me how little I (and probably we, to include you, dear reader) take the time to just have fun and laugh out loud.  Not passively, sitting in front of TNT reruns of “Tommy Boy” while eating popcorn out of the bag, but interactively, with other people, feeding, and feeding off of, the communal vibe.  That was a much-needed 45 minutes of laughter.

[4:54 PM] WAYYYY too much coffee.  I’ve had three cups, which is making me jittery, after having spent the last month and a half drinking almost zero.

Just got done with a great presentation/talk given by John Sechrest, who is extremely knowledgable about the topic.  Lots of good tidbits, including John’s acronym OOMAAT: “One order of magnitude at a time” -- which means that if you have ten bucks, you should get to 100 dollars, not focus on getting to 100 million dollars.  This maps somewhat to a personal philosophy I have, which is that you should run your company like you’re ten times as big/successful/mature as you currently are -- in other words, strive to act like that thing that you want to become.

Microsoft is giving away some mobile phones.  Gotta go fill out at survey to enter the drawing!

[6:58 PM] OK, this is my lucky day.  Lit Wong from Microsoft Mobile gave away 5 HTC Touch Diamond mobile phones, and yours truly won one of them -- estimated value $700.  w00t w00t!  This was right before dinner.  Pre-dinner, I went downstairs with some folks I know for an $11 Baileys-on-ice at Mortons, which I think sets the record for the lowest ratio of alcohol to cost in my lifetime.  Nevertheless, I had a great conversation with Tom Music and Colin Henry which was worth way more than $11.  Dinner was sponsored by Nokia, and was decent fare -- salmon, grilled shrimp, and penne, with a nice fruit plate.

[7:50 PM] An enjoyable interlude after dinner playing shuffleboard and basketball.  This space is awesome.  Everyone is teasing me for liveblogging -- has blogging hit the outs?  Not sure.  In this crowd of geeks, nerds, and technophiles, liveblogging is actually on the conservative side.

[10:53 PM] A superb session on how to continue engagement and activism after the glow of the election has worn off, presented by Sarah Schacht and Monica Guzman.  Participating in this conversation really helped me realize exactly what it is I enjoy about these types of events -- the inspiration, stimulation, optimism, and sense of anything-is-possible that occurs.  Right now my brain is buzzing with all sorts of ideas around a domain I aquired called stoptasersnow.org.

I love this stuff.  Get a group of 10 or 20 bright, passionate people in a room and great things can happen.

[12:16 AM] I’m up way later than normal, but having fun.  At the front of the room about 10 developers are working on an iPhone application, which they hope to have completed by 10 AM.  In the Cerebellum room (yes, the rooms are named after parts of the mind -- get it?) a group of what looks like a mixed group is going over something -- Google App Engine?  Not sure.  Another four or five people are working on the stop-motion craft table, where a video is being made over the whole 24 hours.

[12:36 AM] Awesome video made in one of the sessions:

[2:32 AM] A friend of a friend who came in drunk as a Monday pastor was escorted out by the security guard hired for the event. Big gossip! I didn’t catch his name -- “John Something” was as close as I got -- but I did see him dancing around, and taking headers in the half-pipe (sans skateboard).

Why am I still awake? I’m crazy!

[2:56 AM] Great conversation with Rob Eickmann of Six Hour Startup. He tells me that there are two new Futurama movies that I haven’t yet seen. Must investigate!

[3:15 AM] Here’s a link to a Flickr photoset by Randy Stewart, who I have not yet met.

[3:18 AM] Here’s a photo of the guy who won the Nokia N78 raffle, along with the Nokia rep who came out to the event.

[3:34 AM] Here’s a picture of one of the session sheets, created by Kendall Guillemette and Bryan Zug:

I didn’t go to this session myself, but it looked interesting.

[3:44 AM] I was bored a little bit, so I fortified myself with a cup of coffee. Here at Synapse you can get fresh-brewed out of a little machine the size of a small refrigerator. It takes about 1 minute, but it’s hot and fresh and delicious!

Broadcasting live on UStream.tv: http://ustream.tv/channel/anthony-mindcamp.

[4:27 AM] One of the sponsors of Mind Camp is Throwboy pillows. They make special pillows, and have an icon line to appeal to the geek in every one of us. They showed off one that had the RSS icon on it, which was very cool. Guys, where is it on your site? Online-offline convergence, and all that…

[4:56 AM] Just finished a game of Werewolf. This was my first time, and I happened to be one of the werewolves, and we cleaned out the villagers like a shark through a school of minnows. Pretty fun game!

[5:00 AM] Apropos of nothing, I enjoyed this pic of the “Douchebag Express” via Gawker:

[7:35 AM] I’ve officially been awake for 24 hours. This is the first time in, oh, I don’t know, 15 years that I’ve stayed up all night? Aside from the double vision, the kaleidoscopic vertigo, and the shakes, I feel fine. I just left the Werewolf game, after about 5 rounds as moderator. Moderating is fun, because you get to be part of the action all the time.

The next sessions start in 25 minutes -- I’m going to attend a session on Google SEO secrets given by Adam Loving.

[7:42 AM] I haven’t said this yet, but mad props to Andru Edwards and Gear Live for organizing this event, getting sponsors, working out all the hundreds of details, etc. etc. Big love to all the session organizers as well -- without them there would be no conference, it would just be an “un” (rhymes with none).

[8:56 AM] High grading the fruit bowl. Pineapple and grapes are where it’s at. Adam Loving just gave a very informative, hands-on demonstration of SEO techniques.

[9:02 AM] I’ve posted the first of a bunch of Mind Camp photos at Flickr.

[9:08 AM] Thought: as interesting as some of the tech discussions were at Mind Camp, I was most stimulated by the journalism and activism sessions. Does that mean I’m more lefty than techie?

[9:19 AM] Headed to the Frontal Lobe.

[9:21 AM] No I’m not. The room is empty; I’m assuming force majeure applies.

[9:56 AM] Andru is calling everyone to the front for the closing announcements.

This Saturday I’m attending Seattle Mind Camp 5.0, which will be my first unconference-style event (I think). Andru Edwards of Gear Live, who I heard present at last month’s BigFoot Blogging Conference, has posted a helpful orientation to Mind Camp, which gives me, a first time attendee, a sense of what to expect. Thanks Andru!