Note to HP: Open Your Garage for next weekend’s BarCamp
Next week is a huge event in Silicon Valley. August 18-19. BarCampBlock. They are dedicating an entire block in Palo Alto to celebrate the birthday of BarCamps worldwide. The first BarCamp was started at SocialText’s offices in downtown Palo Alto, which started a movement which has seen events all over the world. Thousands of people are expected. TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington wrote about it and is going.
If you’re coming, make sure you sign up so that you can get into the actual event instead of just the outdoor part of the festivities. More info on the official BarCamp wiki.
But yesterday I was talking to a few HP employees and told them about a marketing opportunity that’s just sitting in front of them. It would be a shame for this not to happen.
Which leads me to this little garage.
It’s only a short walk away from where BarCamp was born (and where next weekend’s festivities are).
Almost every geek I know has never been to this garage. And, if, like Jeremiah Owyang, above, you have visited the garage, you’ve never been inside. You’re locked out of the garage by a gate.
So, here’s my plea to HP.
Open your garage next weekend. Lead tours. Have executives and employees there to explain its role in the world’s history.
Make a bunch of T-shirts. Have them say “I visited the garage at BarCampBlock 07.” They will be popular with all the geeks. Show off your latest laptops.
But get the key to that gate and open it up.
It would be a gesture that will be appreciated by all BarCampers. I’ll lead walking tours of Palo Alto to the Garage if you do that.
On the way you’ll see where Java was written. You’ll visit the site where the Klystron Tube was invented (the core technology behind radar and other things including what makes the Stanford Linear Accelerator work).
HP: you have an extraordinary chance to congratulate the BarCamp movement.
For the three people on the planet who don’t understand the role of that garage? It is the birthplace of Silicon Valley. It is the iconic image of entrepreneurs everywhere who come up with ideas for companies in their metaphorical garages and dream of taking them to worldwide audiences. It is the probably the most important historical building in Silicon Valley.
HP: Open your garage.
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August 12th, 2007 at 9:24 am
I want to thank HP for their help at Gnomedex! I have at least a printer to blame for them being there, and soon one of their metallic tablets! They have been more than receptive to comments from………….even dentists like me!
I guess my point is, stuff like this works. Open the garage.
August 12th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Amen, open up guys. =)
August 12th, 2007 at 10:33 am
From Arrington’s post: “At least 1,000 people are expected to flow through the three day event.”
We gotta get some fresh faces into this world. It’s not really a “happening” if I can name everyone who attends from a single wide-angle Thomas Hawk photo.
August 12th, 2007 at 11:49 am
Great idea, Robert. I hope they get the message and do it.
August 12th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
[...] Note to HP: Open Your Garage for next weekend’s BarCamp « Scobleizer “Next week is a huge event in Silicon Valley. August 18-19. BarCampBlock. They are closing an entire block in Palo Alto to celebrate the birthday of BarCamps worldwide.” (tags: events culture geeks creativity) [...]
August 12th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
[...] Note to HP: Open Your Garage for next weekend’s BarCamp [image] Next week is a huge event in Silicon Valley. August 18-19. BarCampBlock. They are closing an entire block in […] [...]
August 13th, 2007 at 1:27 am
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=333875
Here are all the major articles about HOW and WHY Silicon Valley was created - and its timeline
August 13th, 2007 at 3:36 am
“For the three people on the planet who don’t understand the role of that garage? It is the birthplace of Silicon Valley”
I’d say more than 95% of the people on the planet today have never heard of that garage let alone understand it’s significance.
I do enjoy your blog Robert but sometimes you don’t see the bigger picture.
August 13th, 2007 at 3:45 am
Gareth: I was trying to be funny by saying that.
I know that more than five billion people don’t have their hands on a PC. Even if I don’t act like I get the bigger picture sometimes I do have that in the back of my head.
August 13th, 2007 at 5:07 am
Gareth
Any techie worth anything (ie real programmers) knows about HP and the garage. its up to us old timers to pass the flame on. I can remember when the main thing about HP was if you have to ask the price you cant afford it :-) we had some lab equipment that was the cost of a small house just for the basic model – far more expensive than our PDP 11/03’s
Still there not the force they once where i rember in the mid 80’s we had a HP calculator that was DOA on arrival - the engineer who had it had a stream of visitors who wanted to know if this shocking fact was true and see this fabled thing a duff piece of HP kit he joked about making up a black armband.
August 13th, 2007 at 5:09 am
“I’d say more than 95% of the people on the planet today have never heard of that garage let alone understand it’s significance.”
Precisely the reason to open up! Can’t wait to have my son Sriduth Jayhari view Robert’s take on that garage.
Jay, from Bangalore
http://ideaburger.blogspot.com/
August 13th, 2007 at 11:29 am
This is an AWESOME idea, Robert! Do you know anyone at HP we can talk to about this?
August 13th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Tara, actually, yes. They are discussing it internally today. I’ll pass them along to you in email.
August 14th, 2007 at 9:01 am
[...] Vía Scobleizer [...]
August 14th, 2007 at 9:24 am
Thanks a lot for the information.I was not aware of the facts mentioned in theis post at all till today.Now I can share my knowledge with others when there is any discussion about silicon valley.
August 18th, 2007 at 9:53 am
[...] what they do very well, promoting and promoting BarCampBlock. With blog posts from TechCrunch and Robert Scoble, it was obvious that BarCampBlock will be huge. And it is, over 900 people are coming to [...]
August 19th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
HP really stepped up, thanks to all.
August 21st, 2007 at 9:48 am
[...] Sunday at BarCampBlock, Robert Scoble talked Hewlett-Packard into opening up the famous HP garage, where Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard started HP in 1939, located just a few [...]