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A clip from this longer presentation – CareerCamp: New Unconference Methods for Helping People Build the Career They Deserve with Douglas E. Welch
CareerCamp Founder, Douglas E. Welch, shares CareerCamp with the attendees of the California Placement Association at their annual 2015 conference in San Luis Obispo.
He discusses What is CareerCamp?, how it might be used in your organization and takes you through an example of a Day at CareerCamp.
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Transcript:
I hadn’t thought of that, honestly, when I decide to these, but as I started to do them — you know, again, there is a term, empowerment, right? It’s beat into the ground. It doesn’t really have — it has a negative connotation these days, really, but that is truly what you see with these events. You have people who are long-term unemployed who don’t feel they have any control in their life and for 1 day they control something. And I have seen people — and this is so important to me and kind of an effect I didn’t know I was going to have. You see people come in beaten down and signing in and they have their coffee and stuff. By the end of the day they’re recharged. They’re ready to go out and and do the good fight again. You’ve given them something back. You’ve given them a little bit of empowerment so that they know “You can do this! Hopefully we’ve given you some hard information you can use.” I often say when I am troubleshooting something as a computer person, I’m not done until I am out of ideas. Well, a lot of people come in out of ideas. They’re out of idea They’re out of energy. If you can give some more ideas and some more energy back to them. They can then go out and make their career better for themselves.
What is CareerCamp and Career Camp International?
CareerCamp is a community organized, career-focused, unconference which calls upon local communities and people to share their knowledge, expertise and other important information on developing yourself and your career.
What is an unconference?
Unconferences are self-organizing conferences, similar to many professional conferences, but instead of hiring well-known, professional speakers, they call on the attendees themselves to provide the content and focus for the event. Every person who attends is highly encouraged to present on some topic deeply important to them or, barring that, to facilitate an open breakout session or round table discussion or even just to engage and converse with their fellow attendees between presentations. A few organizers band together to find a venue for the event, recruit sponsors and invite attendees, but the focus of the unconference is driven solely by the attendees.
Some might question the usefulness of presentations by their peers, but we have found that there is an enormous amount of real-world expertise available in each and every local community. CareerCamp utilizes a format that draws out that expertise and benefits everyone. CareerCamp (and other unconferences) provide a structure and an opportunity to share this expertise in ways that traditional conferences do not. Additionally, CareerCamps also attract career development professionals who can use CareerCamp as a way of introducing themselves to a new audience of potential clients.
How was CareerCamp developed?
The genesis of CareerCamp was found by attending BarCamp unconferences held around the world. CareerCamp founder, Douglas E. Welch, was a long time attendee of BarCamp, which is an event that embraces any topic, although it often leans toward technology. After seeing the success of BarCamp as a way to illuminate and educate within a community, Welch applied the unconference concept to the specific world of Career Development.
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