Two Camps worth blogging about – TorontoTransitCamp and GreenCamp

Been slow blogging this one, but just a brief rundown of the camping I’ve done in the last 3 days:

• Toronto Transit Camp was the day long solutions playground at the very, very cold Gladstone Ballroom, Art Bar and Melody Bar this past Sunday. What can I say, but wow. From the word go, the energy and enthusiasm of all the participants was amazing. I had great conversations with so many people I would never have met if it weren’t for the event being what it was. Case in point: Bob Brent, who chatted with me about his experiences with transit in Vancouver in the ’70s before moving on to Toronto to be Chief Marketing Officer of the TTC. I also met some people who I’m hoping will become great friends as I continue stumbling through these last crazy months in Toronto, as well as catching up with some familiar Camp faces.There were two things I noticed: first, that most afternoon sessions died due to low turnout because everyone was focusing on the Design Slams and their presentations – this I consider just the nature of the beast, because Design Slams are glitzy and uber-participatory and absolutely irresistible. I never got to get some discussion around on “Going Global: Inspire Toronto, Toronto Inspires,” which I had planned to have as a “best practices” sort of pow-wow on transit systems around the world (as a thinly-veiled dry-run for the TransitCamp I kinda sorta wanna do in Vancouver). Second thing, entirely unrelated to the organization of the event: I do believe reading the Camp “pledge” was required for registration, but there were a couple of moments during the day when it really felt like people were focusing on complaining or blaming this, that or the other thing, rather than dealing with what they, or we, could do about those things. I get the feelng this is going to be something I’ll be running up against a lot – say, the rest of my life or career in world changing fields.

  Finally, my presence at TorontoTransitCamp was pretty well-documented, if I do say so myself. (Note: CityTV’s version of the video is higher res, therefore it is easier to see me as I muck about in the Speed Dreaming hour.) Hee!

• GreenCamp took place at 20 Toronto Street on this here Tuesday evening, organized by Jacob Petersen (the ‘j’ is soft) of metaInspire. The event had two presentations, from Chris Lowry on Green Enterprise Toronto and Michael Dunbar on Zero Footprint. I first met Jacob at the second-last CaseCamp I attended. It was a modest gathering, but the people that were there were a knowledgable, passionate and enthusiastic bunch. Speaking to Jacob at the close, he commented that he wanted to try and have a combination of the DemoCamp-style presentations along with the interactive aspect more usualy associated with day-long BarCamps. For the first of its kind in Toronto, it had a great vibe and was a good way to get the dialogue flowing. I had two suggestions for Jacob that I think will make the event rock for next time: better expectation setting for audiences and participants at the start of the event (through the use of something like DemoCamp four questions); and broadening the scope of the audience. I truly believe that the diversity is the key to any kind of effective (*cringe at use of the word*) synergy when it comes to approaching complex issues like the environment. I can’t wait to see GreenCamp take off and to see whatever venue we’re in next packed for the second one!

No more camps for me for the next while! I need to do some good old-fashioned book reading.