Critical Mass BeerCamp

The organizers of BarCampCalgary were treated to something special when Dave Robertson, VP at Critical Mass, invited us to their BeerCamp event last Friday. CM is one of the most respected development firms in North America, with a client list that includes Mercedes Benz, Rolex and Dell. After attending BeerCamp, I gained a better understanding of why CM has been so successful over the years:

• Great DNA: CM has some really smart people roaming the hallways. BeerCamp is just like BarCamp, and depends on the crowd to propose and present topics. The CM employees presented enough topics to fill 4 sessions in 3 separate tracks. I attended sessions on "Why Personas Suck", direct mail segmentation, and another chronicling the use of e-marketing in helping one of Edmonton's youngest councilors get elected last fall. I also saw a session on RRSP and tax planning on the agenda! Great presentations and great questions from the crowd.
• Great Philosophy: Most companies talk about cross-pollination, but how many companies actually spend the time and effort to do so? Unlike regular meetings or conferences, BeerCamp gives designers the ability to attend short business or technical talks, or business people to attend design talks.
• More Great Philosophy: Serve beer (have fun while you're learning), and don't take yourself too seriously (one of the sessions was a group of guys playing Rock Band).
• Pride: All the CMers I talked to were very proud of the work they had done for their clients. They all used Dell computers, and I'm sure they would all drive Mercedes-Benz cars and wear Rolex watches if they could!

This is fantastic news for Calgary's BarCamp community, because Dave, Christian and Kelly are not only great hosts, but they're interested in having Critical Mass participate in the community!  More on that as discussions proceed, but for now, congrats to CM for a job well done!