Jenna Chalmers, creative director for the social gaming company and a five-time burner, says the increasing appeal of Burning Man for techies is being able to connect without needing to be plugged in. Wi-Fi access is limited, and cell phone reception nonexistent. "Most people I know, even if they're on Twitter and Facebook a lot in their everyday existences, they don't do that when they go to Burning Man," she says. "It's a recess from that technology and investing instead in something more tangible."

But most of the recent camps, technology-related and otherwise, can be traced to one common ancestor: Foo Camp. Started in 2003 and run by tech publishing leader O'Reilly Media, Foo Camp (foo stands for "friends of O'Reilly") welcomes the bright new minds of media--by invite only--to stew in a multiday hodgepodge of creativity and play. Authors, game makers, and overnight Web moguls--to name a few categories of participants--come together to collaborate on impromptu presentations and projects, testing out new perspectives and thinking up the next big things.

Kati London, VP and senior producer of , a cutting-edge New York games company that specializes in advertising-related projects, describes FooCamp as a land of innovators let loose. "People are overloaded and divided, and face time is more important than ever," and that drives the impetus to take collaboration offline, London says. "It's empowering to have other people recognize in you the ability to create something real."

Another common inspiration is BarCamps, free-form conferences organized by the participants. The first was held in Palo Alto, California in 2005. Early BarCamps focused on Web applications and open-source technologies, but the format has since been adapted to address many different topics.