Some Notes from Podcamp
March 28th, 2009 | Posted in blog 3 Comments »
Attendance at PodcampSLC tripled from last year. More than 100 people attended, filling the main conference auditorium at Neumont University in Sandy, Utah. I especially enjoyed the opening address from Scott Johnson of MyExtraLife.com. He recommended that you try throwing everything against the wall and see what sticks. As a cartoonist, he showed dozens of cool figures he’s drawn, including one drawn with a sharpee on a toilet seat. He loved drawing cartoon figures. It was his passion — and it totally shined through. He was without question the most successful.
Thom Allen is a natural-born conference organizer. Everything from the setup to the schedule to the recording and orchestrating was smooth and flawless. I was thinking about the name “Podcamp,” though. My understanding is that a camp involves more spontaneous, informal, unplanned sessions. It’s a mentality difficult to pull off. During the time scheduled for breakout sessions like this, everyone just talked with each other. The only unconference I’ve ever attended was one Ann Gentle threw together at the Doc Train West 2008. She asked participants to write something they could share for 15 minutes on a white board, and then we moved through the topics. It actually worked.
One thing I love about Podcamp is the tech-savvy audience. 95% of the attendees have laptops and are on Twitter. When the wireless is down, it’s almost like the power is out. I also liked the 30 minute time length for sessions, with 10 minute breaks between sessions. I learn just as much from a 30 minute session as I do from a 50 minute session. And I could probably learn the same from 20 minute sessions too. The time is long enough to get exposure to an idea, method, or topic the speaker is introducing. That’s really the benefit of a conference: exposure to new ideas. And meeting new people.
I also enjoyed my brief exchanges with Jason Alba and Joseph Scott. Jason recommended that I increase my WordPress consulting fee to $250 an hour. People assume that price correlates with expertise. This is what he charges (for business consulting), and gets it. He also recommended that I write a book. When you write a book, people assume you’re an expert, he said.
The book idea stuck with me. I really should write a book, even if it’s only a short self-published e-book. At the very least, I could use it as an enticement to get people to subscribe to my blog. If I did write a book, it would be an irreverent, thought-provoking one that presented a nontraditional, radical perspective on the tech writing industry.
Joseph didn’t present, but he shared that WordPress is working on a plugin for uploading and sharing video using the same service as WordPress.com. Right now, the only way to get HD videos onto your WordPress.org blog is by increasing your space on a WordPress.com blog, uploading and posting the video on your WordPress.com blog, and then inserting the embed code into a WordPress.org blog. Joseph said to keep aware of some upcoming developments with WordPress and video.
I had to miss a couple of Podcamp sessions to attend a lunch with our IT department’s CIO. I was as nervous about the lunch as I was about my presentation. The lunch went well, but to do justice, it would require an entirely new post. The events that take place in one day are too much.
Jane and me at Podcamp Salt Lake City
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Tags: podcampslc, Podcasting
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I second the notion to write a book! I’m doing just that, in a bid not to boost my ego but to boost my business. Sophfronia Scott maintains a published book is the near equivalent of a business card today — so I think my book will be a platform to help me grow my business (and get up to that $250 an hour rate! I’m still in the high double digits at the moment). Her book is “Doing Business By the Book” and is packed with great tips, as well as the “how-tos” of writing a business book. She covers organizing the book, tips for writing, publicity and where and how to sell the book. She even has many ideas for using the book as the launching pad or platform, like I said above, to expand your business — that’s incredibly useful. If you want, you can even have a free consultation.
Happy writing!
You are correct in the definition of a “camp” or “unconference”. And that was the original intent I wanted for our PodCamp. However, when it came right down to it, the amount of people that wanted or would share was small. So to be fair to the definition, we should have chosen a different name.
PodCamps around the globe have moved to an almost completely pre-planned event. You must have a really strong community, not only people with knowledge, but also people willing to attend with no schedule.
Next year we won’t use the word PodCamp. Expanding in several areas, not solely focusing on Podcasting, requires we change the name. More on that later.
The one part of the day I really dropped the ball on was the breakout. What I had originally intended to have happen was hampered by the fact the people who were going to lead the break sessions left. And I simply didn’t have a plan B. I apologize for the break there, it wasn’t really intended to be like that.
Glad you enjoyed yourself, you did a great job presenting. Thank you.
Thom, overall I thought you did an excellent job putting on this conference. I know that podcamps are more informal, as you described. With the number of actual podcasters who attended, I highly doubt that we could pull off a true podcamp experience. My guess is that 90% of the people would show up, not have a clue about what to do, and then eventually leave. I think you chose right in scheduling it more like a conference. People put a lot more work into their presentations this way too, so there is more value.
The podcamp did have shorter sessions and allow time to interact, so in that sense it was different from a normal conference. I liked that.
If you’re looking for a title next year, maybe using the term “digital media” in it would broaden the scope.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to present. I had a lot of fun.