Last night, I attended a BrainJam. This was the second of these events, but the first for me. BrainJams are run by Chris Heuer and Kristie Wells and is an entirely altruistic venture. The idea is simple. People who have some knowledge or expertise to share volunteer as “experts” for rent at the event. Those seeking information can rent these experts. The rental is a buck, maybe five, and it goes into a box for donation to a charity. Participants in the event select the charity. This was social networking of the old-fashioned kind, only with the goal of coming away knowing more than you did when you showed up.

There were a lot of grey lines between experts and knowledge seekers among the 20 or so people who attended at C|Net’s headquarters in San Francisco. I offered up whatever knowledge I could on podcasting, but I also spent half an hour with a fellow named Eugene who is a barbecue master. (He had a great idea for me about how to keep the enamel from burning off my grilling surface.)

The BrainJam is Heuer’s and Wells’ extension of the whole “unconference” concept, but I think it could fit perfectly well in a regular conference. It could be a special event the day before or after, or it could replace a general session. (I, for one, could live with one fewer keynote.) But the idea of a roomful of people sharing expertise out of the goodness of their hearts is an appealing one. Any profession can only improve with a pervasive spirit of sharing and cameraderie that the BrainJam produced.

Short of introducing BrainJams to conferences, I can certainly see others picking up this ball and running with it in other cities.

The next BrainJam will be in September, focused on social media. Schedule permitting, I’ll be there.

Another participant, Joel Sacks, also blogged about the event.