Ever wondered why there’s no PodCamp in your neck of the woods? It’s probably because you haven’t launched one yet.
Want to organize a PodCamp? Though it’s not exactly “easy,” it’s also not especially rocket science. If it was, I wouldn’t have been able to pull off the first one with Christopher Penn. He could’ve, but boy, we learned SO MUCH just in the middle of the action. You could do the same, but if you want to cheat a bit, take advantage of all the cool blogs written about it out there. Want a place to start? Here are 10 of the most important points to getting started.
Quick PodCamp Starter Kit
- Are there more than 10 podcasters or videobloggers or bloggers in your area? If yes, then you can probably do a PodCamp.
- Make a wiki. We use http://pbwiki.com . Easy cheesy to edit.
- List your PodCamp with a tentative time frame up on PodCamp.org
- Remember that there are six rules listed on the page to make it an official podcamp.
- Blog that you’re going to do it.
- Ask for co-organizers. Assign them very specific tasks.
- Find a venue. This is way harder than you think.
- Room for ___ people (it’s your event. How many do you want?)
- Wifi
- A/V gear (unless you can get a sponsor to give you some)
- Food costs – Some places charge 3x the venue costs for meals
- If you can get a corporate venue, that often works the best
- Seek sponsors to cover costs.
- Be very clear on what they get back for their money.
- Make sure this includes link love on the web. If you can, ask others to also blog about the sponsors.
- Be very open about who will come, what type of people, and how the sponsors will interact.
- Decide whether to charge for attendance (something nominal).
- Delegate to the volunteers such that everyone knows what they own.
- Hold a great event and write about it for years.
I’m sure that Christopher S. Penn and Whitney Hoffman have some other advice, but that’s a super tiny starter pack list for you to think about, should you want to start your own PodCamp, and hey, there have been 50 or so of them. Why not?
If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader.
ChrisBrogan.com runs on the Thesis Theme for WordPress
Thesis is the search engine optimized WordPress theme of choice for serious online publishers. If you’re a blogger who doesn’t understand a lot of PHP, Thesis will give a ton of functionality without having to alter any code. For the advanced, Thesis has incredible customization possibilities via Thesis hooks.
With so many design options, you can use the template over and over and never have it look like the same site. The theme is robust and flexible enough not only to accommodate a site like ChrisBrogan.com, but also to enable the site to run far more efficiently than it ever has before.
- Go on a guided video tour of Thesis and see the amazing things you can do with this theme! Seriously, you’ll love it.
- Check out the Thesis demo site
- See more Thesis-based sites in the gallery showcase





