Charles Lee just revealed the secret guests who will be featured at The Idea Camp this Friday and Saturday.

The Idea Camp is a unique approach to gathering innovators, leaders and practitioners; as Charles describes it, “a free hybrid conference for idea makers.” In true Presbyterian fashion, let’s break that down into three points:

  • Free: This alone makes The Idea Camp pretty remarkable.  Not only is registration free (just register at The Idea Camp site), but none of the speakers will be paid either.  Certainly, there’s nothing wrong with paying for a conferences (especially one loaded with top-notch thinkers & leaders like this) or for presenters to be paid — however, it says something pretty powerful about the ethos of and commitment to sharing & networking that The Idea Camp holds.
  • Hybrid: It’s one thing to talk about believing in the collected wisdom of the crowd, but it’s another thing to actually take steps towards open-sourcing ideas and innovation.  Imagine the focus of a conference not only being able to hear from well-known innovators like Erwin McManus and David Gibbons, but being encouraged to connect with like-minded peers, many of whom are certain to have incredible wisdom and passion to share as well.
  • Idea Makers: I must admit, I’m still very much in the process of awakening to the dreams God has for me and my wife as we lead our small church community.  One reason I’m looking forward to The Idea Camp is that the more I hear from friends who are committed to embodying and building the Kingdom in creative ways, the more alive and aware I become to the possibilities of what God can do in and through me, my family and my church.  Seriously, it’s going to be hard to narrow things down from this fantastic list of workshops.  I still can’t quite explain the whole Twitter deal, but I’m looking forward to a couple of tweetups — it will be great to connect face-to-face with friends I’ve been tracking with online for awhile now.

For more on The Idea Camp, check out these thoughts from Dave Ingland, Greg Atkinson and Jonathan Chan.

A couple of quick notes about Twitter:  DJ Chuang gave me one of the most succinct descriptions I’ve heard: “Twitter is text message blogging.”  Now, I’m as skeptical as anyone else of tweets that read like pointless Facebook status updates — e.g., “Daniel likes French Toast more than pancakes” or “Daniel just caught up on 24” (although I’m totally prone to updating that way!!).  However, for an event like The Idea Camp, Twitter is an incredibly useful tool to connect with others, gain real-time insight into the happenings throughout and share perspectives in a quick and concise manner.  If you’ll be Twittering, please remember to use the hashtag #theideacamp — you can track #theideacamp here.