I recently attended a barcamp event. One of the interesting activities that started the event was just registering. Once at the event, we were all asked to ‘tag our tag’ and indicate who we were and add a few tags about why we were there. I found this to be really a good way to explicitly state my agenda and interests.

We were all there on a Saturday and the focus of the event was Africa (BarCampAfrica). What I ended up observing was that most people simply put their name and company. I found it strange that so many people chose to “tag” themselves with the company they work for.

I chatted with a few other attendees about this and we discussed it was pretty common for people to automatically associate themselves with their company. Sure… makes sense. But I sure hope the next time more people tag themselves with interests rather than corporate associations. We lost an opportunity to make it easier to connect with one another based on common interests.