SPN recently caught up with William Allyn Nova, owner and organizer of BarCamp Omaha, to talk about bringing BarCamp to SPSW.

What is BarCamp?

It’s a community conference. I think of a “community” as not just a whole amalgamation of all the people in a community, but also subsets of those communities. This BarCamp in particular is targeted toward the startup community.

At SPSW, we’ve got two tracks: the makers track and the entrepreneurs track. We have folks who make physical goods in the makers track, and folks who are in the weeds of the day-to-day operations and raising money, pitching their business and stuff like that, in the entrepreneurs track.

What’s the format of the day?

Both tracks have 20-minute slots, and they’re open to the public. Anybody can come in and sign up to give a talk about their startup or how they can help folks in the startup community. The great part about this one is that I’m recording the tracks. If you want to tell your story about your startup and have that as a resource for you to share, you’ll be able to have that.

Do you need public speaking experience to sign up to present?

Nope, anybody can come and present. It’s open to the public. And it’s also a great resource for you to practice a muscle that you don’t always get to — public speaking. In this lightning talk format, it’s very low risk. Plus, you have support from folks in the community who have an appetite to hear you talk about what you’re passionate about.

“Share your passion,” is our mantra at BarCamp Omaha.

Do you need to have a slide deck or presentation materials prepared?

No, you do not. If you want to, you can. But you can come in and wing it. You can talk about whatever you want to, off the top of your head, and hopefully it fits a track and helps the community in that particular way.

What are some of your favorite talks from past BarCamps?

I’ve given quite a few talks over the years. I’ve done some comedy ones. I’ve done some where it was a community Q&A about the direction of the business side of BarCamp. And those are always engaging. 

There are also excellent talks. One from this year that I love was particularly interesting for the entrepreneurs. It was a designer and an engineer that partnered to make this business, and they gave a talk about their story. I think it was an excellent example of great collaboration, and I think it was a really well-received talk. That one was in the design track, but it would work just fine in the entrepreneurship track. 

Who should come to BarCamp at SPSW?

Folks who want to share their story — share what they’ve been working on over the past year. Designers, engineers, entrepreneurs and anyone who wants to contribute to the health of the startup community. It’s a chance to come and see the passion that these entrepreneurs can bring outside of a pitch competition setting. It’s more of an authentic, on the ground experience of folks talking about what they’re working on and why it matters to them.

Register for BarCamp at SPSW on Friday, Nov. 15, 12-4 p.m., at The Union for Contemporary Art in Omaha.