The Paris Campfire, one in a series of NetSquared Camp pilot events, was a great success! The unconference, held on June 26, brought together those interested in the field of social innovation to discuss the meaning, ideas and initiatives that are the driving force for social innovation. The lead organizer, Camilla Burg, provides a great overview of the event below:

Net2 Campfire Paris

Despite sweltering weather, nearly 100 people gathered in central Paris last Saturday for the first Social Innovation BarCamp / NetSquared Campfire in France! Everyone from social entrepreneurs to community managers came out to share their work and interest in social innovation.

Breaking ground 

Attendees also included researchers, technologists, bloggers, consultants, designers, NGO and social business representatives. It was the first social innovation barcamp ever in France.

After brief introductions, we each shared three tags to describe ourselves and then given pieces of chalk to fill up the traditional BarCamp gridboard with sessions for the day. It was rapidly put to good use, with 16 workshops outlined in a matter of minutes! A frenzy of activity followed as participants found their way to sessions in different parts of La Cantine.

Popular sessions

• How to manage an international online community
• Research and development around social innovation
• Industrialization of social action
• Neuro-connections and creative intelligence
• A tour of Asia meeting innovative social entrepreneurs
• How global NGOs can get the most out of web 2.0
• Open money and microcredit
• Community management
• The use of media in conflict resolution
• Next steps after the BarCamp

Impressions and insights

• Video: Pehr Martens from the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden
• Photos: Check out all the fun
• See a longer discussion with Tommy, a student from Science Po at the BarCamp (in French)

Did we bring greater clarity to the topic of social innovation? I think so. While the sessions were varied, there were several underlying themes that were shared by many of the participants throughout the day…

• The value of creative and collective thinking
• The need for collaboration
• The importance of ecosystems
• Technology
• A desire to bring greater visibility to work already being done
• Other shared values, such as a belief that we need to create a more equitable society

However, we still didn’t come up with a short pithy sentence that gives us a precise definition of social innovation. If you have one, please let me know!

You can listen to an interview (in French) about the new technology and the Social Innovation BarCamp with l’Atelier des Medias, a part of Radio France International tomorrow (Saturday) at 11h or online at any time.

About the NetSquared Paris Organizer

Camilla Burg

Camilla Burg is new to Net2 having just launched the first Wiser Tuesday group in Paris (a collaboration between Netsquared and WiserEarth). She was born and raised in the North of England. She has lived in London, Sydney and San Francisco where she has worked as a marketing professional in the technology, finance and nonprofit sectors. She has spent the past 3 years working as a communications and outreach consultant with WiserEarth an international directory and social networking website that brings together sustainability and nonprofit professionals. She is now based in St Germain en Laye, just outside Paris where she gets to imbibe local café culture while working on some fantastic projects.

Connect with Camilla:

• WiserEarth profile: http://www.wiserearth.org/user/Camilla
• WE Blog: http://blog.wiserearth.org/
• Twitter: @BondSister
• Skype: camillaburg007

About the Camp Pilot

NetSquared Camp events are fully-sanctioned NetSquared events that have a project focus and bring together local innovators and changemakers to build something together.  Camp organizers receive direct organizing support from the NetSquared team in addition to organizing resources and templates. Learn more in the Camps FAQ.