Quick PodCamp Starter Kit
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?
How Did Personal Video Eclipse Entertainment Video
I’m speaking at ITEC Los Angeles on how social media impacts business. The next day, I’ll speak at Streaming Media West in San Jose on the power of personal media. In 2007, this was my life. I spent many hours a day with Jeff Pulver thinking about how the broadband Internet would disrupt mainstream TV, broadcasting, and entertainment. To my mind, it hasn’t.
The mainstream stormed over the bulwarks and now owns the top of the iTunes video charts. Though a few examples of top shelf independent video exist, like Epic Fu and Something to be Desired, and a few others exist, it’s not like we took over the airwaves. In fact, they took us over.
BUT personal media, making conversations using internet video, seems to be on the rise. With tools like Seesmic and ooVoo and Skype Video, there are lots of ways to have conversations between interested people. This could be business. It might be church. What do YOU know about it? Some quick thoughts to start the conversation.
What happened? Are you involved in Internet video? Do you use Ustream.tv, BlogTV.com, Mogulus, or any of the other video platforms out there? How do you incorporate it into your media making?
Social Media Events Are Fragmenting
This past weekend, the New Media Expo happened in Las Vegas, Nevada. There have been a lot of posts floating around the blogosphere about the event, and I’ve been thinking about what I want to say about it. I think there’s a trend to observe here, and that it’s right in front of us: the state of podcasting and social media events is mirroring the media and technology these events cover. Some thoughts on a few of the events.
The New Media Expo Story
I read James Lewin’s coverage of the event, where he asks if tech trade shows still matter. Short answer: yes, but I’ll get back to that.
Tim Bourquin posted his frustrations about the business at large here. Gutsy move, actually, and I had a lot of thoughts about the post that I want to talk about, but maybe not here. (Note: remember, I also work for a media and events company.
Dave Peck voiced his dissatisfaction here. Part of the complaints in the comments were about the shift to Las Vegas (from Ontario, California). Vegas is tricky for events.
My Take
I think Tim and Emile Bourquin (and team) have put on a great show over the years. I enjoy their event. It’s worth paying for. I think they’ve done lots to bring together the tenuous “industry” that circles podcasting and media making. I would’ve been there this year, but a last-minute conflict pulled me out of the game. Otherwise, I was proud that I was asked to take the stage at an event I loved in 2006 when I first attended it. I hope Tim continues making a show, but if not, I understand his perspective.
For those who try comparing NME to PodCamp (note: I’m co-founder of PodCamp), it’s not the same thing. Tim’s show is worth the price of admission. He goes to a great expense to put it on. PodCamps are different, and we offset the costs by doing volunteer labor. One isn’t better than the other. They’re different. More about PodCamps later in the post.
But now, think about podcasting. Where is THAT going? If you can guess that one correctly, get back to us all. It’s been a crazy ride so far.
Blog World Expo
Rick Calvert and team are putting on Blog World Expo in a few weeks, and I will be in attendance. This event covers blogging heavily, but also has a new media track. It debuted last year in Las Vegas, and appears there this year, too. This means there were two events about social media (let’s not quibble over terms) within a month of each other. I planned on attending both. Why? Different crowds. Tim’s event has a history and brings lots of the podcasting world’s brightest. Rick’s event brought diverse people like religious, military, sports, and political bloggers, and I liked that.
Those are two events about social media, within a month of each other, in the same state.
And again, what’s the state of blogging? People are slipping off to twitter and tumble and seesmic. Some blogs are more and more like mainstream outfits now. Others are falling apart into lifestreams. Is there a blogging industry? Not sure.
Other events
Let’s add to that Gnomedex (I fly out later today), South by Southwest, Podcasters Across Borders, SOBCon, and several other social media events of varying prices.
Add on top of that the several dozen PodCamp events, lots of various social media events, meetups, tweetups, Mashable-ups, TechCrunch50, and we haven’t even spilled over into the bigger events like all of Tim O’Reilly’s stuff. And now, we have the crux of the issue.
As Goes the Social Media, So Goes the Events
Why aren’t we catching on that blogs are atomizing into blogs/twitter/friendfeed/seesmic/google reader comments/ etc, and thus, the events are going to start to feel that way, too? It’s like we need a FriendFeed for events at this point, to sum up all the experiences we’re having, and those we have to skip.
Want to see just how diffuse this is becoming? Look at Robert Scoble’s watchlist on Upcoming.org. And that’s not all of them. You need to get into Somewhat Frank’s Calendar, and a few other choice places to see all the social media events.
There are almost more events than there are bloggers and podcasters, and that’s in the US alone.
What Comes Next
If I knew this, I’d be a billionaire. But I can say this: the event space shifts and turns all the time. There used to be Comdex, a super-event will gazillions of people. That atomized and now several other events took its place. E3 used to be the gamer’s event of the year. Things rise, things fall. They swell up, they dissipate.
As a consumer of events (I go to dozens a year), I’m putting my personal value in attending into three camps:
- Who will I meet there from the industry itself?
- Who will I meet there are prospective clients who have also come to attend the event?
- Where are my friends going?
Note that I didn’t say I wanted to see where the vendors and new technology are. Why? Because you’ll tell me that. (You= Paisano, Engadget, Louis Gray, Robert Scoble, Center Networks, etc).
Note that I didn’t say where all the great speakers will be. I love meeting great speakers, but I try do do that in the hallways between speeches.
Note that I don’t care which show is the biggest ,best, only, and all the other terms marketers want to use.
As a PRODUCER of events, I have certain goals and put my value in the following:
- How can I deliver the most value for a reasonable cost?
- How can I make the event last before, during, and after with online community?
- How can I empower others to make their own experiences?
- How can I deliver the most education?
To me, as things spread out, diffuse, and move differently between larger and smaller crowd sizes, I will focus on adjusting my expectations, making the ideas around the events more flexible, and trying to deliver as much to the community as I can around the constraints as they come up. I’m working, as always, from a passion for what comes next, and the goal of helping others learn and then execute.
And I know this, too: Tim, Rick, everyone else mentioned above, and everyone creating events is either thinking the same way, or they’re bound for some rough waters.
I’ve got my own event coming up with partners David Meerman Scott and Paul Gillin in October. This one is more geared towards helping marketers and PR professionals understand what all the other events listed above live and breathe on a daily basis. It’s a bit different in that way. And yet, I’m mindful of everything I’ve covered in this post.
Just the same, there’s a lot to learn, and many connections to be made, and many new people coming into the social media space every day. We’ll find ways to get everyone together face to face.
Just be mindful of everything going on around the actual ticket you bought, and the sessions you liked or didn’t like. You’re part of it with us. And that’s the good news.
Photo credit, respres
Remember Blogging and Podcasting
Some days, it feels like more and more people have abandoned their regular blogs and podcasts and have run off to tools like Twitter and Friendfeed. I just stopped by a friend’s blog, worried that I had a bad RSS subscription, only to discover that he hadn’t blogged since June. Another of my friends only blogs Twitter links now. What happened? Why are all the bloggers and podcasters going to Twitter or Seesmic or other temporal moment-in-time platforms?
One reason is that products like Twitter and Seesmic and uStream.tv all give us even faster, simpler conversations. We don’t have to synthesize information, compose a position, and build a post. Instead, we can talk back and forth about things we like. Another reason is that the feedback loop is so much tighter when doing a ping pong game of ideas instead of the blogger-to-comments model.
But wow. I sure miss you bloggers and podcasters that I know in love. Thanks to Mitch Joel and Christopher S. Penn and Valeria Maltoni and a whole host of others who keep writing and/or recording something interesting and useful daily. To the rest of you, come back?
**Update: Inspired in no small part by a great Mitch Joel post, though I didn’t realize it until Mitch commented. : )
Photo credit FotoDawg
The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.
Get the entire series by subscribing to this blog, and subscribe to my free newsletter here.
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Personal Brilliance and Me
Oh no, I’m not saying that I’m personally brilliant, but Jim Canterucci seems to think that I am. He’s turned the month of August into Chris Brogan month over at his Personal Brilliance podcasts series.
You can listen to the first part of the interview here, and then Jim will release another episode each week.
One note: Jim was perhaps the most prepared podcasting host that I’ve ever sat with. He had amazing preparation skills, and the patience of a saint (to deal with my scheduling issues).
Anyhow, check out the podcast here.
By the way, Jim’s not just another pretty face. He wrote a really interesting book (I’m reading Chapter 3 now):
What Social Media Does Best
If you’re still looking for the best ways to explain to senior management or your team or your coworkers or your spouse what it is that social media does, why it’s different than the old way people used to use computers and the web, why people are giving two hoots about it, here are some thoughts to start out the conversation. I look at this mostly from a business perspective, but I suspect you’ll find these apply to nonprofits and other organizations as well. Further, as I’m fond of saying, social media isn’t relegated to the marketing and PR teams. It’s a bunch of tools that can be used throughout businesses, in different forms. Think on this.
What Social Media Does Best
- Blogs allow chronological organization of thoughts, status, ideas. This means more permanence than emails.
- Podcasts (video and audio) encourage different types of learning, and in portable formats.
- Social networks encourage collaboration, can replace intranets and corporate directories, and can promote non-email conversation channels.
- Social networks can amass like-minded people around shared interests with little external force, no organizational center, and a group sense of what is important and what comes next.
- Social bookmarking means that entire groups can learn of new articles, tools, and other Web properties, instead of leaving them all on one machine, one browser, for one human.
- Blogs and wikis encourage conversations, sharing, creation.
- Social software, like Flickr and Last.fm and even Amazon.com, promote human-mediated information sharing. Similar mechanisms inside of larger organizations would be just as effective.
- Social news sites show the popularity of certain information, at least within certain demographics. Would roll-your-own voting within the company be useful?
- Social networks are full of prospecting and lead generation information for sales and marketing.
- Social networks make for great ways to understand the mindset of the online consumer, should that be of value to you.
- Online versions of your materials and media, especially in formats that let you share, mean that you’re equipping others to run with your message, should that be important (like if you’re a marketer).
- Online versions of your materials and media are searchable, and help Google help you find new visitors / customers / employees.
- Social networks contain lots of information about your prospective new hires, your customers, your competitors.
- Blogs allow you to speak your mind, and let the rest of the world know your thought processes and mindsets.
- Podcasts are a way to build intimacy with information.
- Podcasts reach people who are trying out new gadgets, like iPhones, iPods, Apple TVs, Zunes, and more.
- Tagging and sharing and all the other activities common on the social Web mean that information gets passed around much faster.
- Human aggregation and mediation improves the quality of data you find, and gives you more “exactly what I was looking for” help. (See also, Mahalo).
- Innovation works much faster in a social software environment, open source or otherwise.
- Conversations spread around, adding metadata and further potential business value.
- People feel heard.
And that’s a great place to ask you what I’ve missed. What else does social media do best, in your estimation?
—
The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.
Get the entire series by subscribing to this blog, and subscribe to my free newsletter here.
Photo credit, Boston Public Library
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Podcasting for Business-Are Your Customers Worth It
Are your top 10 best customers worth $50 each and a few hours of your time? Here’s an idea: why not buy a few Apple iPod Shuffles, load them up with recorded audio version of your most important product and service information, or your sales pitch, or your annual report, or whatever else they’re probably not reading in expensively-printed paper format, throw in a little bit of podsafe music in between each bit, and send it out to them?
Think it’s crazy? Christopher S. Penn records a daily podcast about financial aid information, money saving tips, and a little bit of podsafe audio, and he’s brought in millions for his company. Is the show boring? Not at all. Chris has TONS of info that you can use, even if you’re not in financial debt. And he’s got WAYYYYYY more listeners than if he were to write about this all day long and count on people to read his materials.
Is it hard to start podcasting? You need to know about a few tools and methods, but after that, no. How can you learn about starting out? Attend a PodCamp, read a good book on the topic ( Podcast Academy: The Business Podcasting Book is recommended by me), and start learning by doing.
What do you think? How would your very best customers react to seeing a nicely packaged iPod in their mailbox one morning?
Photo credit, Re-ality
Podcasters Across Borders- A Canadian Event With Heart
This year’s Podcasters Across Borders will be held June 21st - 23rd, in Kingston, Ontario. It’s a great community event run by some excellent people who believe in the value of a deep learning experience. I’m happy to say that I’ll be attending this event and saying a word or two somewhere in there. Bob Goyetche, Mark Blevis, Cathy Bobkowicz and Andrea Ross are behind this masterpiece. If you’re in Canada, care about social media making, and want to experience a quality small conference experience, check out PAB.
Making Business Sense of Social Media
Talking to people isn’t much of a business, except it is. Customer service has some talking in it. Sales has talking. Hmm, okay, so maybe there’s lots of talking in business.
Blogging, podcasting, video, microblogging, presence platforms all help facilitate communication.
Following the happenings around you in your industry won’t help you get ahead, except that it probably will. Knowing where people are, what they’re interested in, what they like and dislike, as well as understanding shifts and trends and news seems like a good way to stay up on what might impact your business.
Twitter and Facebook and all those social networking sites facilitate sharing of information.
This blogging and social media stuff is just for marketing and PR types, except it’s not. Building networks of interaction, delivering new tools for collaboration, empowering knowledge compilation are all opportunities for the use of these tools that don’t fall into the hands of only the communications team.
Status and presence and wikis and collaboration tools are useful to business teams, and not just marketing and PR.
It’s not immediately obvious why some of these tools apply to some businesses, and it’s DEFINITELY true that not all these tools will be useful to all businesses. But to not even consider how your organization can improve their productivity, their customer service experience, their product design, their hiring processes, and more, well, that just seems like a ticket back to 1996.
What do you think? Is there a business application to all this? Why are big companies delving in? What will convince businesses to dig in and experiement a bit more?
The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.
Get the entire series by subscribing to this blog, and subscribe to my free newsletter here.
Social Media Starter Moves for Entrepreneurs
This could be considered a “backwards” post. I tend to talk from the perspective of a user of technology, but I am writing this one for the point of view of people who might be seeking to build new tools, to join the social software scene. I love entrepreneurs, and I enjoy the notion of building new, amazing things. But I do want you to think about this space, too.
If you’re NOT building a social network or platform, stick around. I want YOU to tell folks your thoughts, too.
The Platforms We’re Using
I’m definitely not going to list out every social network and social media tool, but I do want you to understand a bit about HOW we’re using these tools, so I’ll mention a few.
- MySpace or Facebook - Not just for kids any more. The grown-ups I know use both of these services for roughly the same thing: connecting with people they already know and making some new connections.
- LinkedIn - Business social networking, and the top of the heap. It’s getting a little more interesting, because of their status stream, and the redesign.
- Twitter - Not everyone’s on there, but we’re more on there than Pownce and Jaiku. Why? It’s not because it’s better. It’s just because we’re all still there, because it’s simple, because it solves a lot of needs.
- Flickr - We’re sharing photos on Flickr and SmugMug.
- YouTube - We’re sharing video on YouTube and Blip.tv and a few dozen smaller places.
- Digg - We’re getting news from Digg and Reddit and SlashDot, and there are lots of new upstarts for specific niches. We seem to like these sites because they let the crowd vote on what’s newsworthy to US as a niche.
So that’s some of what we’re interested in. You’ll certainly want to add places and tools into the comments section, so that we can get those called out, too.
The Marketplace Overall
I’d say the barrier to getting me to join a new social network is getting higher and higher. If you’re doing a business network, I’m already using LinkedIn. If you’re building a place for friends to connect, Facebook in all its annoyance still handles that enough-ish, and Twitter handles it great.
What comes next for networks? Velvet rope. Lots of it. I think the next step (and this was once prophesied by Eric Rice somewhere) is something closer to an anti-social network, or more accurately, a professional social network. Want to see a top shelf example? Check out Sermo, a social network for physicians. I met with Daniel Palenstrant, the founder, recently and he’s a smart cookie. He’s got a great product and he knows it.
What about tools?
Social Media Tools
There are lots of overlap experiences going on at the moment. For instance, there’s an entire social information aggregation space, all with different spins. There’s Lijit for search, FriendFeed for aggregation, and then maybe a dozen variations on the theme thereafter. Check out Louis Gray’s site for TONS of these types of apps. (Good guy, Louis).
There’s Blog Talk Radio and Talkshoe offering phone-to-podcast experiences with different twists (and I’m friendly with both companies, and they’re both full of great people).
We have Twitter/Pownce/Jaiku. We have Utterz for the multimedia-meets-phone. We have Qik and Seesmic and a flavor in between.
In blogging software and content platforms, we have WordPress, Drupal, Tumblr, Blogger, Joomla, TypePad, LiveJournal, and another million opportunities.
There are MANY tools. So then, what is the barrier to entry with either another tool or network?
High. Challenging. Difficult.
So What Do We Want?
This is your turn to answer. What do you think is necessary out there? What do you want built to suit YOUR world? How can an entrepreneur turn your head and get your attention? What would lure you off your platforms right now, or what aren’t your existing tools covering for you?
The comments section of this post will far outweigh the value of the post itself, so remember to click through to [chrisbrogan.com].
The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.
Get the entire series by subscribing to this blog, and subscribe to my free newsletter here.
