^[1]This year I won’t be able to participate to MediaCamp Perugia ^[2] like I did last year ^[3] =(

Part of the International Festival of Journalism ^[4], an event that every year attracts and hosts in beautiful Perugia the most brilliant minds in journalism and communication, MediaCamp Perugia is a very animated unconference that usually takes part the last day of the main Festival of Journalism, after 4 days of intense networking. I participated to its latest edition last year with a presentation about Personal Broadcasting and Citizen Journalism ^[3] from a search / social media marketing point of view, and it was a great knowledge sharing experience, as I learned a lot from information gurus such as Luca De Biase ^[5], Vittorio Pasteris ^[6] and Francesca Romana Elisei ^[7], but also from other experts such as my good friend and Second Life artist Carmela Modica aka Asia Connell ^[8], who also shared with me the experience of organizing MediaCamp Roma ^[9] back in December 2008.

The reason why I cannot attend this year’s MediaCamp Perugia is that one of my best friend gets married on the same day, so I had to make a choice and f course I couldn’t let my friend down! I hesitated for a couple of minutes in front of the MediaCamp Perugia’s wiki page ^[2] before deleting my name from the list of presenter for this year and, with a broken heart, I finally did it – but not before adding a link to this article in the session “Who’s talking about us”…. when I saw….

Since I’m addicted to unconferences ^[10], while I was editing the BarCamp wiki ^[11] I couldn’t help noticing the next brilliant unconference idea and event, Social Innovation Camp // Food, a double event that will take place in Milan on May 6, and in Rome on May 11. I couldn’t resist, so I signed up to participate and contribute with a couple of social innovation ideas to the roman date of Social Innovation Camp // Food ^[12].

Not that I had nothing else scheduled for these days in May – I’m already overbooked for the month of May. Beside of work and a little bit of private life, of course…

^[13]After participating to Social Innovation Camp // Food ^[12] in Rome on May 11, I will take a fast train to Milan on the same day to speak on May 12 at a social media marketing session at EBA Forum 2010 ^[14] (Everything But Advertising Forum). On the same evening of May 12 I will have to catch a flight to Bilbao to moderate the second edition of the Nonick Conference ^[15], a world-class event launched by the Basque Public Television who’s bringing this year to Basque Country Jennifer Preston ^[16], the Editor-in-Chief for Social Media at the New York Times, who I will get to interview both live for the conference, and on video for this blog! Stay tuned!

Busy conference schedule for May, specially because I have other speaking commitment in Gijon with the entrepreneurs peer-to-peer network Iniciador Asturias ^[17] just few days after the Bilbao conference, then back to Milan on May 27-28 to deliver a couple of workshops on search marketing and social media marketing at the new exciting eco-inspired event Aria Nuova ^[18]! And coming this month of April SASCon ^[19] Search Analytics Social Media Conference in Manchester, SEMstandard 2010 ^[20] in Warsaw while at the beginning of June I should be involved in a new initiative from Search Congress ^[21] in Barcelona, after which I will have to attend one of the two in-person meetings per year with the SEMPO Board of Directors ^[22] (BOD) in Arizona, the first with the new international Board just elected at the recent SEMPO BOD Elections 2010 ^[23], where I will proudly keep serving for the next two years.

Yes I have a busy schedule, my friend call me a business nomad, others a business gypsy and it’s difficult to keep track of my constant moves, even if you can track me trough my Dopplr profile ^[24] (I also integrated a little Dopplr widget at the bottom right of the homepage of this blog) – but I also never run out of time, passion and energies to get involved in knowledge sharing environments, and this is why I couldn’t resist to sign up for the roman session of Social Innovation Camp // Food!

^[25]What is Social Innovation Camp about? Social Innovation Camp // Food ^[12] is a BarCamp event designed as an award but built as an unconference, where people signs up to share knowledge on a specific topic, presenting innovative ideas.

As defined by the organizers, Social Innovation Camp is the first Italian no-profit media network focused on social innovation and, as I can understand from the spirit (and the logo), //Food is just the first of a series of vertical events that IdeaTRE60 ^[26], the organizer of the event, is planning to present in Italy over the next months.

Social Innovation Camp // Food is an idea lab and social innovation award, not just a BarCamp unconference. The organizers are brilliantly using the BarCamp platform ^[27], format and community to merge unconference, idea labs and incubator, as the most brilliant social innovation project not only will be awarded 5,000 Euro, but will be funded by venture capitalist funds with an initial boost of up to 100,000 Euro – sure, it’s not the million dollars people get by Silicon Valley angels, but still is a great platform to help brilliant ideas come true and to help kick off a social innovation business.

Which social innovation project am I going to present? Surprise… =)

Seriously, I’m not going to blog about it now – but you will hear about it soon, Social Innovation Camp // Food will happen in just a month form now! Just to let you wonder, I have a social innovation project for the food industry, a project that I once proposed to the Italian food giant Barilla ^[28] (via our ex client Academia Barilla ^[29]) but didn’t took off. A project that, if embraced by a multinational food corporation, can have a tremendous social impact, and it’s all about italian food!

Cannot say more at this point – stay tuned, and sign up to Social Innovation Camp // Food ^[12] to share your social innovation ideas and – why not? – make your social innovation business come true!

1 Comment To "BarCamp, MediaCamp, Social Innovation Camp and other Unconferences"

#1 Comment By Asia Connell On 3 April 2010 @ 04:14