My Golden Ticket to Camp Digital 2015

Karim Laljee
Karim Laljee

For those of you like myself who were very keen to attend Camp Digital and get your hands on those sort after tickets and be one of the 350 lucky people to be at the event, it must have been a disappointment if you didn’t get chance to go.

Tickets had sold out and the only option I had to attend the event was to try to sneak in or enter a competition that University of Salford were holding, where you had to come up with innovative ways of using new technology. Thankfully I was selected as one of the winners and got my hand on what felt like one of Willy Wonkers Golden Tickets!

You could also see that all those with tickets were going to make sure that they were there!

Standing room only for the first speaker

You can see from the pic, that the early start didn’t put anyone off, as there was standing room only for the first speaker of the day,

Camp Digital 2015

Camp Digital 2015

where Sarah Bridges (Director of Programmes and Partnerships at Go ON UK – @SarahBridges) delivered her Keynote talk on, ‘The Importance of Research and Partnership in Tackling Digital Exclusion’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcs0pG8XvV4

See her Importance of Research and Partnership in Tackling Digital Exclusion slides

Right from the start Camp Digital had a really good vibe. Just by the way people were talking to each other and networking, you could see it was all going to be about collaboration.

Camp Digital and the golden rubber ducks

It was nice to see a variety of stalls there, which included some of the sponsors. It was good to learn about what they did and how they have an impact on the digital community. Also nice to see innovative ways of enticing people to their stalls, by using a variety of methods, from Golden rubber ducks to iPads!

What a big subject User Experience (UX) had become

Coming from a social media & digital marketing course, as owner of Soc-Med, it was great to see the wide range of topics and discussions that took place at #CampDigital. Following on from the talks and sessions, it was not only a great learning event, with people sharing what they knew about their respective fields. It was a chance to also ask questions of the experts and speakers.

It was very interesting to learn about what a big subject User Experience (UX) had become and how it can be used on so many different levels and involving many different departments… It wasn’t just something ‘tech guys’ should be talking about.

The only drawback to Camp Digital was that you couldn’t clone yourself and be in more than one place at once! However, the team at Sigma (Organisers of Camp Digital) had already thought about that and have since the event uploaded the slides from the talks and the videos from the day on to the Camp Digital website.

The addition or improvement I would make is…

I think it should be even bigger! More stalls more talks and more of the same! Maybe it could be run over a couple of days? Would be great to hear the thoughts of Sigma on that 🙂

You could tweet them on @WeAreSigma to add your voice!

Overall it was a fantastic event, and like all top events, i’m already looking forward to the next one!

If you missed it here’s an overview video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYDrfjwyd3M

 

or if you’d like to ask me more about it, feel free to tweet me on @mrkazlaljee