This past weekend was Barcamp Jonesboro. A "tech unconference" that was held at Arkansas State University. It consisted of presentations about Twitter, video editing, starting a blog, SEO and more. There were so many interesting presentations that I didn't even get to attend all of them.

Registration
Before 8:00am people were already showing up, getting their name badges and hanging out in the breakfast rooms. The free breakfast that was provided was just what I needed to get going. People mingled around the registration area and breakfast rooms getting to know each other. Most of the people that attended I had never met. Once it go closer to 9:00 it was time to start deciding what presentation to attend.

Morning Session
From 9:00 to 11:00am there were 3 sets of presentations. My presentation happened to be one of the first ones at 9 o'clock. Once my presentation was over I went to a presentation about using free tools to start a blog/news site. I was really interested in this presentation considering I have a couple of blogs and websites that I manage all with free tools. The next presentation I attended was right before lunch and discussed "web video for your business". This was another presentation I was highly interested in, because of the podcasts and videos I've been doing over the last couple years. It had some really good advice when it comes to lighting and recording audio.

Post Lunch
After we were provided a free lunch of Firehouse Subs sandwiches there was a small prize giveaway available to everyone who attended. After giving away tons of stuff they had a panel discussion about social media and how to establish your local tech communities. Once the panel discussion was over we went right into the afternoon session of presentations. Anyone who attended that wanted to host a presentation could put their name in a hat with a description of their presentation. These presentations were voted on by the attendees and those with the most votes got to present.

The Big Giveaway
Once all the presentations were over they had everyone meet at the Student Union to close things out. The sponsors were thanked and then it was time to give away the big prizes. They had a Zune, Adobe CS5 (valued at $2,500) and an iPad. Of course I was really hoping to win the iPad, but some lucky ASU student ended up winning it. Overall Barcamp Jonesboro was a lot of fun and I was pleasantly surprised with how well the whole event turned out. This was the first conference of its kind here in Jonesboro and I'm really looking forward to the next one.

Jacob Cook