0. I don't know how many things I can talk about yet, let's see when we get to the bottom.  

1. I've been struck how the "20 things about #ukgc12" almost turned into a required format. As I remember it, I saw Dan Slee quoted as saying a good way to deal with having a full head after GovCamp was to quickly write down 20 things about it and then leave them behind.  Over the next few hours though this morphed into Dan Slee's "recommendation" that blog posts should take the form of 20 things about the day.   Fascinating how "rules" get made up, innit? (those who came to my Human Scale Conversation session should be nodding sagely at this point.)

2. The first session at a barcamp-like unconference, or any event based on Open Space principles often brings out the control-freak in us.  It's very challenging to get 250 people to introduce themselves and then try to create an agenda for a whole day from scratch with them, all in the space of an hour, but it's what makes the whole thing work and it sets the tone for the rest of the event.  GovCamp really is your event - it's for all of us to create together, the one's who actually turrn up on the day, not some pre-arranged committee who "know best".  I do a bit of hand-waving and mutter incantations but actually my job is to get out of the way as much as possible.  

3. We do it this way because it works and because we've seen the alternative really fail big time again and again.  Because it's unusual for most of us and outside of our everyday experience, it's tempting to make two mistakes.  One is to think that because it's the first time we're doing it, that this is the first time it's being done - nope - it's a well-established technique that is probably used somewhere in the world every day to help large groups of people organise their own experience.  Secondly it's tempting to look back at bits of the day that didn't work for us and think it didn't work because we got the grid work wrong and therefore we should do it differently next time.  This mostly comes up as a suggestion that "just a little bit more structure or pre-planning" is introduced.  While I'm sure that we do get things wrong sometimes and there are ways that we can make the process serve us better, I don't think that it's a reason to introduce pre-planning.  All that pre-planning does, in my experience is make people who are feeling anxious and don't trust the process think that they will feel better.  The answer is to trust the accumulated experience that the process works well - this will give you much more relief from anxiety and will truly make you feel better.

4. I was very grateful on Saturday morning (and Sunday for that matter) not to have been drinking alcohol the night before.

5.  I drink a lot of water during events like this and I steer clear of sugary-goodies or carb-laden lunchbags.  I've found that it's the only way that I can keep going for the full day without needing a nap.  Not that having a nap isn't a good thing of course.

6. I've long given up going to the maximum number of sessions.  I need rest time alone and time to just chat with people gently.  I usually go out at lunchtime and walk around the block too to get some fresh air in my lungs (yes even in Central London) in place of the dry air-conditioned artificial atmosphere of the office or conference centre.

7. I'm really glad that this blog has worked as a way both of collecting people's thoughts, getting some people blogging who haven't before and serving as a link to those who are regularly blogging good stuff in this space.

8.  I don't really know what I think about the 2 days rather than 1 thing.  I do think that it's terribly difficult to build anything from scratch in a day.  I don't know whether we should just stick to talking and accept that talking, real talking, conversations like the ones I ran and the "reflective practice" that I referred to on the day as the Lower Sixth Common Room is just as valuable and likely to lead to something cool as trying to start to build something cool right there and then.

9. Dave Briggs and Steph Gray rock.  You know that.  I know that.  We can't say it often enough.  But many of you might be able to say it with Purchase Orders. I urge you to do so if you can.

10.  There are few men who I will allow to kiss me on the cheek.  Two of them did so at GovCamp.  They know who they are.  I love them both deeply.

11. I can't close without adding my vote to "No Royalty".  If someone important wants to talk, they have to take their chances with the rest of us.  I just felt uncomfortable herding people in for what I thought was a summary session only to find we were going to be keynoted.  I think people should have a choice about that just as with all other sessions.