Ask Us Anything

Once, in February 2007, there was a BarCamp, in the City of London's Historic City of London office of BT. Due to the unlikely confluence of a couple of improvisers, some experts, and Ryan Alexander, a session appeared called Ask Us Anything, featuring the people whose fault it was (Mark Norman Francis and James Aylett), the three people who were suckered into it (Jeremy Keith, Simon Willison and Steve Marshall), and Ryan, who showed up and seemed kind of fun. A later session, with more alcohol and a good deal less sense, had Aral Balkan and Tom Coates instead of Jeremy.

Ask Us Anything does exactly what it says: audience members ask questions, and panelists respond. The questions can be on anything, from the intensely technical to the utterly profound to the fairly pointless. Every panelist has to answer, even if they have no idea what the question is about, which can be informative, thought-provoking, or ridiculous - there are no guarantees, just answers.

We've run similar sessions at the London BarCamps since, and down at BarCamp Brighton. We'll probably keep on doing so while it's still fun. Let's see what the future brings.