Freelance Camp Houston was a huge success! We would like to thank Powered Production for helping to record and make some of the sessions available. They are going to have all of the media that was captured available – if you recorded anything at the camp and you’d like to share it please contact them via the contact page.
If you were a speaker at the main room, and you’d like a DVD quality copy of your talk – let them know, and they will make it available to you (either via mail or download from their server.)
Davy & Ruby kicked ass!! They hustled and quickly created the artwork for the Klean Kanteen bottles for our events as a donation. Looking for some amazing hand drawn art? You wont find a more edgy and interesting crew.
Parachute Creative is a Santa Cruz based collective specializing in design, branding, digital media solutions and marketing. Our passion for aesthetic forward thinking drives us to generate stimulating and representative design, prevalent in the versatility and originality of our creative process.
We strive to contribute to our community to promote sustainable growth, innovation, collaboration and most of all: the ability to adapt in any climate. Underpinned by a maxim of uncompromising quality, free formed concepts will fit seamlessly within the client’s tone and roots.
Cruzio Internet is the largest and longest running Internet Service Provider in Santa Cruz County. They are the high-speed DSL and Web Hosting leader for local business and home subscribers. Committed to changing and growing to meet their members’ needs, Cruzio now offers in-store computer repair and Joomla, SEO and ecommerce classes. It’s hard to believe that Cruzio first opened their doors when most current UCSC students were just born. As time flies by, their commitment to quality service and supporting local non profit organizations has never wavered. With over 10,000 members, Cruzio provides excellent Internet services coupled with one of the most flexible and intelligent tech teams out there.
Elance is the leading site for online work where businesses connect with independent professionals to get work done.
On Elance, businesses find the experts they need plus the tools to manage online work from hiring to collaboration to making payment.
Elance offers companies flexibility, cost effectiveness and instant access to a vast pool of skilled and tested talent. Professionals use Elance to find work, deliver great results and get paid for doing what they do best.
NextSpace is a coworking and innovation space located in the heart of Downtown Santa Cruz, CA. The mission of NextSpace is to catalyze local talent, local ideas, and local capital in Santa Cruz to create products, services, and solutions for the global marketplace. Our members are part of a community of innovators who are passionately committed to building the next generation of the Santa Cruz economy. Santa Cruz is full of talented freelancers, entrepreneurs, designers, engineers, programmers, consultants, and investors. But what happens when all these people come together in a productive and collaborative work environment? The result is the NextSpace Effect(TM).
Article by Corilyn Shropshire in the Houston Chronicle on April 24, 2009
They call it the un-conference.
It’s a place where everybody is somebody, jeans rule over expensive suits, drones at the podium are (strongly) discouraged and the schmoozing is (typically) free.
At one of these so-called BarCamps, whoever shows up gets to decide what happens.
What began in 2005 as anti-conference for geeks in Silicon Valley — a gathering for a bunch of computer programmers irritated by the exclusivity of invitation-only technology conferences — the barcamp has sprouted offshoots that have nongeeks, youngish hipsters and even baby boomers looking to learn a new trick rallying together around a common interest.
While the original barcamps tended to be focused on developing Web applications, these days, the themes increasingly run the gamut. On any given weekend, meet-ups known as GreenCamp, BandCamp, even CupcakeCamp, are taking place in cities around the world.
It’s spreading like a virus: PhotoCamps attract amateurs and professional shutterbugs to powwow about the latest in photography.
SkepticCamp spawns discussion about everything from the benefits of detoxing and eating organic food to paranormal encounters. ArtCamp brings artists and art organizations together for a day-long brainstorming session.
At a recent LaidoffCamp in San Francisco, one of the most popular sessions was “Booked-#$%^$% Solid,” which addressed how the self-employed can land clients and keep them.
“The whole idea is 20 minds are better than one,” said Travis Skweres, who recently organized FreelanceCamp in Houston. Roughly 100 participants attended sessions including “Resume 2.0” and “Twitter Basics.”
“Everyone learns from everyone else,” he said.
Here’s how it works: A bunch of people with similar interests decide on a theme, pick a date, find a venue and set about spreading the word, primarily through online social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.
Participants arrive in the morning and either sign up to speak on a topic relevant to the theme or wander in and out of workshops that interest them.
Anyone can host a camp, guided by a barcamp “wiki” with instructions on Web.
The workshops tend to be spirited events with an academic vibe — attendees tapping away on laptops (Twittering, no doubt) while a speaker beckons input from the crowd.
“Campers” say the cool thing about barcamps is that they are flexible, laid-back, collaborative and communal — great places to share ideas.
Taking part in the discussion is expected. Keeping silent is strongly discouraged.
“I like it because it’s crowd sourcing,” said Grace J. Rodriguez, who led the “Branding U” workshop at FreelanceCamp Houston. “It’s open source in real life, everyone has value and everyone can contribute.”
Barcamps also allow people who are increasingly conversing online to get face time with each other.
“With Twitter what you can say is limited, so the conversations are limited,” Rodriguez said .
Since barcamps usually are free, fans say they wonder why anyone would pay to listen to talking heads with little or no interaction.
If participants pay anything at all, it’s usually less than $50 to help cover costs for bagels in the morning, pizza for lunch and candy in midafternoon.
FreelanceCamp organizer Skweres raised roughly $1,500 to pay for the venue, food and such extras as T-shirts and notebooks.
The organizers of last month’s LaidoffCamp San Francisco got the use of a nightclub in exchange for guaranteeing participants would spend at least $1,000 drinking at the post-camp happy hour.
If barcamp sounds like anarchy, it’s not. Democracy rules.
If a speaker is bad, Skweres said, “someone can stand up and suggest a new topic.”
That’s what Skweres wishes he could have done after spending $450 to attend “some really bad sessions,” at South by Southwest in March.
“I was thinking to myself, someone should stand up, suggest a new topic, new speakers or send this (panel) in a different direction,” he said.
So when someone asked to make a comment during his recent lecture on Twitter at FreelanceCamp Houston, Skweres’ feathers weren’t ruffled. He merely invited the person to join him up front.
Anybody can participate in the discussion, as long as he or she has something valuable to add. Said Skweres, “The participants make it happen.”
Anybody can participate in the discussion, as long as he or she has something valuable to add. Said Skweres, “The participants make it happen.”
Both he and Rodriguez are busy planning their next camps locally. Skweres aims to host an EntrepreneurCamp in July, while Rodriguez is working with a team to develop a camp “to teach people how to make good presentations.”
Since 1979, Baskin & Grant has been committed to providing excellent legal services in a broad range of practice areas. Their services include Intellectual Property, Business Law, Family Law, Estate Planning, and Civil litigations. Baskin & Grant emobides the relaxed and accessible ambiance of Santa Cruz, with the intensity, focus, and success rate of a big city firm.
For this legal firm, it is all about keeping the client involved and notified, while maintaining the highest levels of professionalism in achieving success. As managing partner Caleb Sequoia Baskin says “It’s our job to help our clients make good decisions”. This type of outlook has allowed Baskin & Grant to rank in the top 5% of all legal firms, based on AV ratings from Martindale-Hubble.
Their success and involvement goes beyond their resume and mission statement. For Baskin & Grant, the social is just as important as legal justice. Baskin & Grant commitment towards social justice and involvement in the community has made it a true gem in the Santa Cruz area.
Live from the San Antonio Freelance camp, the Struggling Entrepreneur podcast describes the event as well as its value to the Free Agent or Freelancer — or the Solo-preneur.
“During that session, we interviewed Craig McCasland of www.obeo.com. Craig came with interest to this unconference, as he had never been to one before. His business is in need of rebranding, and his open mind came with questions about social media and how to use it for his business and his customers. And as you will discover from this audio episode, Craig left with a pleasant surprise.”
A few days back, Jeremy Neuner, Owner of Nextspace Coworking and Innovation, posted a review of the emerging tech scene in Santa Cruz. He named the first Freelance Camp as a significant player in the evolution of our growing and thriving local community.
Now you may think, emerging?!?, that’s silly. Santa Cruz is just 30 minutes out, a hop over the hill, from Silicon Valley. Borland, Plantronics, Netflix, Seagate and more were born there. All true. And yet, over the last decade the cohesion of the local community had evaporated. We had become just another bedroom community for the hordes of people commuting to google or trying to convince the investors on Sand Hill to cough up another few million.
That began to change a year and a half ago. We started geek dinners, which led to jellies, which led to freelance camp and a coworking space, which launched some hopping start-ups (for example: 12 Seconds, User Voice) and catalyzed a once disparate community of freelancers.
Feel like your town is isolated? Frustrated there isn’t enough action and clients? Get some people together and it will change things. I promise it will blow your mind.
Help the economy. Help yourself. Help your friend. Run your own freelance camp.
We have received a significant number of questions on how to run a freelance camp. In order to help as best as possible, Dmitry and I will be writing a series of articles detailing the lessons we have learned over the past year.
Running your own camp is a pretty straight forward process! The bar camp model is quite well documented and we borrow heavily from it. Dmitry is gathering a number of blog posts and will begin making a basic checklist.
There are two questions that comprise most of the emails we get: “How do I find Sponsors?” and “How do I get people to come?”.
To kick it off, I wrote a post last month on my own blog to help answer questions regarding finding sponsors: http://blog.shaneandpeter.com/2009/03/19/finding-sponsors/. I am re-posting the article below with a few modifications: (more…)
Live from the San Antonio Freelance camp, the 
