Saturday, March 14, 2009

Bloggers' meet at St. Joseph's, Bangalore organized by IBNMS.

St. Joseph's Bangalore
BlogCampBangaluru was my first 'blogging un-conferences' organized by IBNMS and it got me hooked beyond doubt.

It had a sluggish start (Saturday morning 9:30 is quite an ask for Bangalore, the city which celebrates weekdays like Christmas) with people trickling in slowly as we began. Pramodh from Injoos started off with his presentation on how bloggers can find a business model around what they 'love' to do. Followed by a gentleman who has been a veteran journalist with Hindu and has recently given up his job and switched to blogging and online publishing as his bread and butter! Mr. Anand Parthasarthy is an old man with an energy that puts quite a lot of people, (like me) who love to call themselves 'young', to shame and his years of experience in the traditional journalism has backed his decision to switch to blogging as a money making device.
Seagate, the principal sponsors behind the event, came in next. It's an organizers plight to have the sponsor talk delivered by a monotonous 'corporate' guy without passion for his product! Even the funny anecdotes by Ajay failed to keep the spirit of the meet up :( I'm yet to see Steve Jobs live so can't generalize the statement but most 'corporate' announcements or releases have failed to impress me, that's why I look forward to reading about the product when my favourite blogger does a post on it!
There was a talk by Ajay Jain, the person behind this particular blog meet, on how the relationship between PR and the blogging community is finding new meanings and what needs to be done to strengthen the bond. Amit Gupta talked about 'Blogging beyond english', I was surprised to know that there was such a big community which blogged in other Indian languages (you can check the Blog Camp wiki for the presentation).
Dr. Ashish Gupta (if I write all that he 'is', I wont find place to write anything else, so I'll just say that he's been a Venture Capitalist of late) expressed his ideas on the difficulty (and near impossibility in the current scenario) for a blogger to find an investor to fund her. We have our own ideas though and IBM's arrogance was Xerox's, Apple's (and so many others like them) chance to make money in a market which the 'big guys' didn't even realize existed!
There were 2 speakers who personally impressed me a lot. A 67 (I guess, based on the fact that he retired in 2004) years old gentleman, Mr. Prabir Ghose who started blogging very late in his life and is now an authority on the web and a charming young gentleman, Mr. Keerthi Kiran who is one of the few people who has tried to contribute to the society by empowering others (like him) to take an affirmative action.
If you are under the age of 25 and want to make a difference to the country you live in and are proud of, do visit Grass Routes and find out more about it.

PS: Its a shame that the head count kept going down as the day progressed. Lets blame it on those who left early, they were at the wrong place to start with :). It was a great platform to get in touch with people who think like you (or 'un-like' you but 'think' at least), Seagate sponsored lunch was one of the best 'cold pizzas' I've had ever 'cuz of the company I had it with!
blog camp bangaluru

16 comments:

Varun said...

Hi Prasoon,
It was good to meet you. You have summed up the event really well. LOL on the cold pizza :)

If you didn't recognize me by name, I was the one who shook hands with you just before you left.

Am blog rolling you...

- Varun
http://varun-giridhara.blogspot.com/

Unknown said...

Hey Varun,
Thanks for visiting CnC. N it was great to meet you buddy :)

Unknown said...

It was good and engaging. Good write up too.

\cold pizzas.. lol

Unknown said...

The cold pizzas are getting mocked at unnecessarily I guess. They were just sitting in the basement waiting to be eaten while they were still hot and the speaker before the lunch went on with an 'engaging' session ;)

Anonymous said...

Well, I did my best to finish my session quickly, I could see people wanted to get away for lunch, eh! ;) This is 1 reason I don't like taking a session just before lunch - keeping the focus of audience away from lunch & on session is a difficult ask, hehe! :)

It was nice meeting you! :)

Unknown said...

Hey Amit,
Frankly, I'd forgotten who took the session before lunch wen I punned bout it in my comment ;) (its always a risk to say such things to a big guy ... lol).
Your session was informative dude, I've written hindi poems for ages (I have a big friend circle who used to have mock 'hindi kavisammelans' back in school) I guess I need to revive some of it now. Thanks.

Keerthi Kiran said...

Hi Prasoon, it was greating meeting you at the meet. Good write up.

Cheers
Keerthi Kiran
www.grassroutes.in

Unknown said...

Thanks for being an inspiration buddy :)

Prakash said...

Hi! Prasoon

Great Update

Thanks !!

Anonymous said...

Sorry, I missed you at the meet. However, it was great to see some serious bloggers who we're ready to share their experience and thoughts during this event. I hope to be part of many more in times to come.

Cheers Debu :-)

PS: Dad (PKG - Prabir Kumar Ghose) had an upset stomach due to the cold Dominos Pizza :-), rest he was a li'll disappointed at not being able to share more with his brethren due to lack of time.

Unknown said...

I wanted to know a lot more about PKG (these short names are nice stuff, I'm called 'PJ' btw), his experiences, expert advice; time was really a spoiler :(

prabir ghose said...

thanks for all the nice words - it takes all sorts to make a world and i happen to be the odd man out - i have psted a report in my blog - the link is

http://o3.indiatimes.com/rediscoveringindia/archive/2009/03/15/4961700.aspx

Unknown said...

hey i enjoyed the blog camp!! it was great to meet all new people out there!!

and LOL at cold pizzas... (no sauce) :P

just kiddin.. its quite diff to put a show like this.. so i am glad i was there :)

Unknown said...

Hey Apoorva,
I hope we're able to organize something of this sort again very soon.

Nav said...

Hey Prasoon Joshi (PJ)

Great Coverage..

Couldn't talk to you at the meet..but getting updates thro your CnC..

Cheers
Nav

Nav said...

Hey Prasoon Joshi (PJ)

Great Coverage..

Couldn't talk to you at the meet..but getting updates thro your CnC..

Cheers
Nav