Earlier today I did a short talk at Podcamp 2009 about Dear Toronto, our little ol’ video podcast that focuses on all things near and dear to our hearts about our fair city. A handful of people checked it out, and most seemed to enjoy what I had to say about what makes for good, fun, consumable video with a city as its primary subject. Here’s the slides I ran through care of Slideshare:
The slides lose a bit of context since most of them have short excerpts from some of our video along the bottom, but you can probably get the gist of what I was going for. I’ve got a lot to say about this year’s Podcamp, particularly the sessions that seemed to dominate regarding public relations and marketing use of social media, but I’ll leave that as a subject for another post.
Sorry I missed your session, Adam – I was stuck in the halls trying to fix a live-streaming issue. Love the design of your slides though – I’ll have to check out the video stream! Thanks for presenting your session.
I just checked out the video on your podcast page, too – love it! Especially the “everything gets turned around” piece. Will definitely check out your podcast.
I was really looking forward to catching your session at podcamp, but an impromptu appointment came up with a client. Great slidework, did someone manage to video the session?
Hey Adam,
It’s awesome you could participate in Podcamp Toronto! I honestly can’t remember if I got a chance to talk to you, the weekend was all a bit of a blur. Sorry if I didn’t say hello.
I didn’t get to see your presentation but I will definitely check out the video which we should have up on the wiki within a couple of days.
I wanted to say something that you only alluded to in this post but is one of those things that may be ‘out there’ about the number of PR and marketing sessions. As you might know, a number of folks on the organizing group have connections to the PR and marketing communities and also there’s a great deal of general interest in social media from certain members of those communities. I do want to be very clear though, Podcamp Toronto is something I’ve been involved with from the start and it has NEVER been the intention for marketing/PR sessions to take over the event. If there’s a feeling that is happening, what I would say is that the people who don’t want it have to step up and put sessions on the wiki.
We had a fairly full slate of sessions but there were a few spaces, especially on Sunday. I’m clearly not directing this at you ‘cus you did a session, but if there are others out there that are griping about there not being enough of a certain kind of session, GET OFF YOUR ASS AND DO IT YOURSELF. Or find someone who you want to have speak and draft them. Or offer to do it as an interview or a panel with them. THAT’S the unconference way of doing things.
Also, if you’re in a session at an unconference like Podcamp Toronto and you’re not getting anything out of it, WALK OUT. It’s called the Law of Two Feet — you’re responsible for your learning. I talked about this very clearly (I think) in the opening remarks, and it’s posted at the top of the schedule page just like it is every year. Short of wearing it on a sandwich board or tattooing it to my forehead, I’m not sure how much clearer we could be about that.
Anyway, sorry for the crazy rant. And Adam, PLEASE if you know of anyone who thinks we are not all about this, please please please let them know to call me. My details are at jaymoonah.com — I’ll talk to anyone at any time over any channel or in person about this stuff. It means A HELL OF A LOT to me, and I don’t want anyone to think otherwise.
Cheers Adam, and thanks again for helping make Podcamp Toronto a great event.
Jay Moonah, co-organizer, Podcamp Toronto 2007, 2008 & 2009.
Dave, thanks for the comment. Nothing personal in my comment about your session on Twitter, like I said earlier was just a little overwhelmed with all the analytics around social media, marketing and so forth.
Jay, we didn’t get a chance to connect – I was running around for most of Saturday like crazy trying to take it all in. There was a ton of sessions to choose from. I totally agree that there should have been more of the ‘law of two feet’ happening, but have to say (as others have already said I believe) that the rooms weren’t very conducive to just getting up and leaving.
Where the presenter is at the front of the room, you really have to disrupt everyone else in order to leave. I found myself trying to be positioned near the door for most sessions in order to be safe. It felt like others were doing the same as the doors were quite crowded in every session.
You guys did a great job organizing and orchestrating the weekend. I can’t believe the turnout that you got, so kudos for that. I was glad to be a part of it!
Thanks Adam. The problem of course is that Ryerson didn’t build their classrooms with us in mind. Also, because certain folks were so freaked out about the numbers, we ended up added additional chairs to the rooms which probably made it harder to exercise the law of two feet. I was against adding chairs, but I was ultimately guilted into doing it for fear that some people might not have a chair and might cry or something.
People at unconferences have to be brave. They have to suck up the fact that things aren’t perfect, that for example there might not be a nice little laneway for them to leave the room if they have to, with an usher who has a flash light to lead them out nicely. Hey, life’s hard. Get a helmet.
Anyway, thanks Adam, I do appreciate the feedback, as I’m sure the organizers for 2010 will.