Reed Copsey, Jr. Thoughts on F#, C#, WPF, .NET, and programming for Scientific Visualization Home About Series Talks Contact Me Reflections on GiveCamp Posted by Reed on Tuesday, October 25, 2011 · 2 Comments I participated in the Seattle GiveCamp over the weekend, and am entirely impressed. GiveCamp is a great event â€“ I especially like how rewarding it is for everybody involved. I strongly encourage any and all developers to watch for future GiveCamp events, and consider participating, for many reasonsâ€¦ GiveCamp provides real value to organizations that truly need help. The Seattle event alone succeeded in helping sixteen non-profit organizations in many different ways. The projects involved varied dramatically, including website redesigns, SEO, reworking data management workflows, and even game development. Many non-profits have a strong need for good, quality technical help. However, nearly every non-profit organization has an incredibly limited budget. GiveCamp is a way to really give back, and provide incredibly valuable help to organizations that truly benefit. My experience has shown many developers to be incredibly generous â€“ this is a chance to dedicate your energy to helping others in a way that really takes advantage of your expertise. Your time as a developer is incredibly valuable, and this puts something of incredible value directly into the hands of places its needed. First, and foremost, GiveCamp is about providing technical help to non-profit organizations in need. GiveCamp can make you a better developer. This is a fantastic opportunity for us, as developers, to work with new people, in a new setting. The incredibly short time frame (one weekend for a deliverable project) and intense motivation to succeed provides a huge opportunity for learning from peers. Iâ€™d personally like to thank off the developers with whom I worked â€“ I learned something from each and every one of you. I hope to see and work with all of you again someday. GiveCamp provides an opportunity for you to work outside of your comfort zone. While itâ€™s always nice to be an expert, itâ€™s also valuable to work on a project where you have little or no direct experience. My team focused on a complete reworking of our organizations message and a complete new website redesign and deployment using WordPress. While Iâ€™d used WordPress for my blog, and had some experience, this is completely unrelated to my professional work. In fact, nobody on our team normally worked directly with the technologies involved â€“ yet together we managed to succeed in delivering our goals. As developers, itâ€™s easy to want to stay abreast of new technology surrounding our expertise, but its rare that we get a chance to sit down and work on something practical that is completely outside of our normal realm of work. Iâ€™m a desktop developer by trade, and spent much of the weekend working with CSS and Photoshop. Many of the projects organizations need donâ€™t match perfectly with the skill set in the room â€“ yet all of the software professionals rose to the occasion and delivered practical, usable applications. GiveCamp is a short term, known commitment. While this seems obvious, I think itâ€™s an important aspect to remember. This is a huge part of what makes it successful â€“ you can work, completely focused, on a project, then walk away completely when youâ€™re done. There is no expectation of continued involvement. While many of the professionals Iâ€™ve talked to are willing to contribute some amount of their time beyond the camp, this is not expected. The freedom this provides is immense. In addition, the motivation this brings is incredibly valuable. Every developer in the room was very focused on delivering in time â€“ you have one shot to get it as good as possible, and leave it with the organization in a way that can be maintained by them. This is a rare experience â€“ and excellent practice at time management for everyone involved. GiveCamp provides a great way to meet and network with your peers. Not only do you get to network with other software professionals in your area â€“ you get to network with amazing people. Every single person in the room is there to try to help people. The balance of altruism, intelligence, and expertise in the room is something Iâ€™ve never before experienced. During the presentations of what was accomplished, I felt blessed to participate. I know many people in the room were incredibly touched by the level of dedication and accomplishment over the weekend. GiveCamp is fun. At the end of the experience, I would have signed up again, even if it was a painful, tedious weekend â€“ merely due to the amazing accomplishments achieved throughout the event. However, the event is fun. Everybody I talked to, the entire weekend, was having a good time. While there were many faces focused into a near grimace at times (including mine, Iâ€™ll admit), this was always in response to a particularly challenging problem or task. The challenges just added to the overall enjoyment of the weekend â€“ part of why I became a developer in the first place is my love for challenge and puzzles, and a short deadline using unfamiliar technology provided plenty of opportunity for puzzles. As soon as people would stand up, it was another smile. If youâ€™re a developer, Iâ€™d recommend looking at GiveCamp more closely. Watch for an event in your area. If there isnâ€™t one, consider building a team and organizing an event. The experience is worth the commitment. FILED UNDER COMMUNITY, PROFESSIONAL · TAGGED WITH CHARITY, COMMUNITY, GIVECAMP, PROGRAMMING About Reed Reed Copsey, Jr. - http://www.reedcopsey.com - http://twitter.com/ReedCopsey Comments 2 Responses to “Reflections on GiveCamp” Paul Litwin says: October 25, 2011 at 9:25 PM Great post. Thanks for rising to the challenge and sharing your experience with everyone in your blog post. I agree 100% with everything you said. Reply Steve Hiner says: October 25, 2011 at 10:25 PM I totally agree. I was so happy about a year and a half ago when I found out there was a guy organizing GiveCamp here in Phoenix. I had heard about them and really wanted to participate. Having taken part in all three we’ve done here in barely more than a year I can easily say they are some of my favorite weekends. I plan to go to every one held here and I’m always working on the developers I know to try to get them to participate as well. They really are a ton of fun. Reply Speak Your Mind Tell us what you're thinking... and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar! Name (required) Mail (will not be published) (required) Website Search for: Categories Categories Select Category .NET (73) C# (67) F# (4) MVVM (15) WPF (19) Algorithms (34) Async (7) Parallelism (22) C Tech (1) C++ (3) Community (3) F# Software Foundation (1) Gjallarhorn (1) Performance (2) Professional (4) Uncategorized (5) Meta Log in Entries feed Comments feed WordPress.org Tags .NET .NET 4 .NET 4.5 Algorithms Async C# C# 4 C# 5 Charity Community F# F# Software Foundation FSSF GiveCamp IDisposable Interop MEF MVP MVVM Optimization Parallelism Performance PLINQ Programming Windows Forms WPF WPF Gjallarhorn F# StackOverflow Reed Copsey 530,914 ●7272 gold badges●11031103 silver badges Archives December 2020 December 2019 December 2018 December 2017 December 2016 December 2015 December 2014 October 2013 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 April 2011 January 2011 December 2010 October 2010 July 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 Twitter Feed META Log in Entries feed Comments feed WordPress.org CAREER C Tech RECENT POSTS F# Basics – Result<'a>: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bind F# Basics – From loops to folds 2018 Christmas Trees – Cross Platform Edition using Avalonia CATEGORIES .NET Algorithms Async C Tech C# C++ Community F# F# Software Foundation Gjallarhorn MVVM Parallelism Performance Professional Uncategorized WPF © 2021 REED COPSEY, JR. · SHADES OF BLUE THEME BY STUDIOPRESS · WORDPRESS · LOG IN