During last 2 years former USSR countries faced so-called “BarCamp boom”. Starting from the very first Ukranian BlogCamp in autumn 2007 and until the most recent NevaCamp in St. Petersburg, we all appreciated brand new style of putting new media dreams into real life.

These two years were full of exciting events, people, projects and innovations, which changed us very much. I, personally, during the Kiev BlogCamp in 2007, made my first presentation on a large (relatively) audience, met some people who became my good friends very soon, decided to take part in the BarCamp Baltics 2008 and even developed some ingenious projects for their Innovation Incubator.

Then a first thought of hosting our Belarusian un-conference has appeared. Later it transformed into some small events in Belarus and a huge event at the end of year, as a gift to all Belarusian internet community - ByCamp 2008.

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I am in Baku now for Bridge Camp or Körpü Kamp in Azerbiajani. It is a second Barcamp style event this year in Azerbaijan. Sitting in the chairs of the high-ranking GEF Hotel and listening on possible new media-NGO-media links, I feel pretty interested. Actually it is organized by Transitions Online Caucasus representatives, our activists and other people. I have seen a lot of people from our previous trainings and it is fun to see people coming to listen and speak on new media, and the end of the traditional one. Some people from Ganja asked me: Will i present something on new situation in Azerbaijani media?

Actually I will present old vs. new media, and sure, it is not yet the end of the one. It just should change as has been done by many. Now I see some websites from media that have pretty good design, open source based programming, comments, videos, voices in one place. That’s what I want. But still even these pages don’t t involve many journalists participating. People (even if they write comments for one of the biggest opposition newspaper) are still unanswered by editorial staff.

Hoping to change this year. Now listning to one of my first students - Rita Valiyeva on media and PR. Perfect knowledge of issues. She also serves as PR person for our Barcamps. Success - we have more people than planned.

Still a lot of jobs to do. I am always using this ugly web site to show what we need to change. Pop-up windows, no place to write comments, not even proper e-mail to the editor. But imagine - it is the most read newspaper and news website in Azerbaijan, according to various statistics. Imagine how much more they will get … if they will change.