Well, that was Sydney. Where to next?…

After much fan fare and a bucket load of work I was 1 of 140 registrants for the inaugural #rebcsyd which was held in Sydney on May 24. Although we didn’t match our numbers of registrants with the number of attendees I reckon we had certainly cracked the magic ton. ** 

REBarcamps have a great following in the USA with over 70 of these events having now been run with great success. The challenge for the Aussie organisers was whether there would be a transference of the energy and openness of the US events through to the Aussie market. Fortunately there was a wonderful spirit in the room and after a brief opening by the organising team a request was put to the floor to *nominate 8 topics that they’d like to discuss in the first 8 sessions of the day.

Now, If you’ve ever experienced an REBarcamp before you’ll understand that the format is that of an ‘unconference’.

What’s an REBarcamp? and how can it be free?

Its an event where the attendees get to choose the topics and drive the debate with the support of a facilitator or subject matter expert in a brand agnostic environment. Its certainly a ‘fly by the seat of your pants’ event where as one of the organisers you are relying solely on the desire of the attendees to raise their hands and nominate topics and issues.

So, after 30 seconds of stoney silence the first ‘bid’ came from the floor to suggest a discussion on Mobile technology, then another onWordpress, another on the issue of outsourcing of social media, then, using LinkedIn for business, another suggestion about the importance of video to real estate agents, then old fashioned new world real estatewas suggested and within less than 3 minutes we had 8 excellent topics, 10 facilitators, and a crowd with a thirst for a series of 8 great discussions.

I think its fair to say that REBarcamp Sydney was a great success. On behalf of my fellow organisers Lara Scott, Greg Vincent, Peter Fletcher, Tatiana Mijalica, Ben Stockdale and all the way from Santa Clarita California Jeff Turner, we’d like to thank our sponsors, Professionals, Inlinemedia.biz, TheHomePage.com.au , Stephanie Mason from Tret.com.au, Adam Campbell from desktop.com.au and many others for their wonderful support of our first event. In particular I’d like to publicly acknowledge the enormous organisational work of Lara Scott who was on hand to busily work behind the scenes securing sponsorships, organising the venue and registrations and generally making the event the great success that it was. Well done ‘Nanna’. 🙂

All in all we ran 15 informative sessions with some excellent interaction at this years event .

Possibly the two stand out pieces of the day for me were.

1. Jeff Turner’s opening… “if today sucks – its your fault’… (which truly encompasses the REBarcamp experience)

2. Seeing Ian Campbell – Head of Marketing at Ray White agreeing to co-present on ‘Marketing’ with Steve Day of LJHooker.

Tell me, who’d have ever thought that was possible?!

Both for me were absolute highlights to which I would have gladly paid 15 times the price of admission to hear and see again.

REBarcamp Sydney finished with a very liquid end courtesy of Professionals CEO Glyn Morgan who fronted with a very generous bar tab.

 

REBarcamp

As one of the organisers I’m already excited at the prospect of rolling the next REBarcamp into the other states and capital cities of Australia. Our inaugural organising team are located in Brisbane, Melbourne, and Perth and are also very keen to keep the momentum rolling. Our sponsors have indicated they’d like to support further events. So now all we need is the venue, the people and the spirit to share in an open brand agnostic environment.

30 years of real estate has shown me that no-one has a mortgage on a great idea. Its proven to me that its far better to give than to expect to receive. Its shown me that no matter what the colour scheme is above your offices front door, there are some wonderful people in our industry with a willingness to learn and share. I saw 100 of those people in Sydney on Wednesday May 24 and I liked what I saw alot.

For the more analytical of readers here is an interesting break down of the days tweets mentioning the hashtag #rebcsyd Tweet analysis. There is actually some wonderful information here.

But don’t just believe me. Click here to see what the attendees said.

Tony McGrath-Principal of Professionals Real Estate at West Ryde cpatured the faces of REBarcamp Sydney in this lovely compilation piece. Our special thanks to Tony for sharing his work. I hope you enjoy it. Click here to see ‘The Face’s of REBarcamp Sydney

🙂

Please join me in acknowledging the work of the REBarcamp Organisers. Left to Right – Top to Bottom

Greg Vincent, Tatiana Mijalica, Ben Stockdale, Lara Scott, Peter Fletcher and Peter Brewer.

See You Next Time!

** (Important note to anyone who registered to attend and didn’t respond. Pfft!! and Meh!.. . I mean, We’re really sorry you missed out on a great day. Hope you can make it next time!)

*Update: I’ve also found these reviews from others who attended the event.

Ian Campbell of Ray White voices his thoughts here.

Ryan O’Grady of Business2 shares his opinions here.

🙂