Photos: Misery loves (nerdy) company at LaidOffCamp
The first such event, which took place during daylight hours Tuesday at a night club in San Francisco, was an ad-hoc gathering of unemployed and self-employed people seeking to share ideas and figure out how to make money amid the downturn.
Gathering in SF
LaidOffCamp, held during daylight hours Tuesday at the Temple night club in downtown San Francisco, was an ad-hoc gathering of unemployed and self-employed people seeking to share ideas and learn from one other.
Volunteers, speakers, and sponsors came together to facilitate networking and information exchange among hundreds of recently unemployed people.
Another 16 such events are preliminarily scheduled across the nation, with the next one set for Friday in Dallas.
Hundreds show up
Starting at 9 a.m. Tuesday, hundreds of people packed the night club, where the free coffee and bagels ran out quickly.
Dozens of panels ran throughout the day. Some of the workshops were planned presentations, some were question-and-answer forums, and others were thrown together at the last minute.
LaidOffCamp founder Chris Hutchins
Chris Hutchins on stage
Post-it note schedule
The Post-it note schedule at LaidOffCamp might look unorganized, but many attendees found the un-conference quite productive.
Among the topics covered: living on a budget, building your personal brand, finding a job/work in the downturn, learning to freelance/consult, and tracking down affordable health insurance.
Doing business
Attendee Lexie Tillotson
Varied panels
Pursuing start-up businesses
Filmmaker David Bowsky
Job fair 2.0
Pat Moore, co-founder of Amplafi
BigEar's Michael Pordes
Lee Clark at LaidOffCamp
Resume 2.0 session
Raines Cohen on co-working
Laura Capuzzi
The un-conference
In late January, Hutchins' event had only 26 confirmed attendees on Facebook.
Getting the word out via Twitter, the LaidOffCamp wiki, Upcoming.org, and Facebook, the event had 293 confirmed attendees the day of the conference.
In the end, more than 600 showed up.
Questions and answers
Jonathan Iger
LaidOffCamp panels
Lydia Schembri
Looking at the upside of the downturn, Schembri sees this time of flux as an opportunity for people to explore themselves and gain new perspectives on life.