This past Saturday, I experienced my first bar camp - The Bar Camp Tampa Bay. For those who don't know, a bar camp is a technical conference run by the attendees. Unlike a code camp, sessions are not selected in advance; instead, any attendees can sign up to deliver a presentation during an open slot. Technically, I attended this same event last year. However, last year, the Bar Camp was combined with the Tampa Code Camp and I delivered five presentations, which prevented me from visiting the Bar Camp side of the event. This year, I experienced Bar Camp head on. I signed up to deliver a presentation titled "Connecting the Dots: Using HTML5, jQuery, and Web API Together". It went really well. The room was packed and, after every seat was filled, people sat on the floor in the aisles. The only downside was that I ran out of time, but a number of people came out in the hallway with questions. It was a good experience because I'm delivering the same (but longer) presentation at DevConnections this week. I attended a few sessions: students showing off robotics, how to write a successful blog, and lessons from the Game of Thrones (Winter/death is coming to us all eventually and we should be ready). Although most of the attendees were technologies, I noticed that most of the sessions were not about technology - many were about startups and social media and marketing and soft skills. Still, people were engaged and I didn't hear a single complaint about a disappointing session. I also had a chance to meet a number of new people. Most attendees were not Microsoft developers, but we still found common ground and I came away impressed by the Tampa area developer community.