Why Podcamp?

Podcamp, from its very inception, has been more than mere how-to’s about recording audio or video and posting it online.  It’s been about finding your voice, expressing your creativity, finding a niche and a community, and personal development, clothed in this thing called Podcamp.

While Podcamp started as a local attempt to have a podcasting conference not located on the West Coast, it almost immediately developed into a conference about how people were using digital tools to create community,for any purpose, ranging from business to non-profits, to a passion for knitting, and beyond.  While it’s still called Podcamp, it’s been about so much more from its birth.

At Podcamp Philly, I’ve tried to get this across by adding “Search Camp” to Podcamp- local experts in search engine optimization and more help people understand how to make their digital media projects more easily indexed and hopefully more successful as a result.  After all, if you understand in one half of the conference  how to make digital media, you also need to know how to help people find it and how to understand the analytics to be able to measure how well you are doing.  We’re doing this again at Temple University October 3 & 4th this year, and the folks who run our local Social Media Club are adding Social Media Camp sessions as well.

The name of the conference itself is becoming less important.  What happens there remains as important as ever.  This past weekend at Podcamp Boston, we had almost 75% of the attendees attending their first Podcamp.  The discussions ranged from What’s next in new media, to having people like CC Chapman and Ron Ploof discuss what’s on their plate, to sessions about the Kindle, and Women in New Media.

Podcamp is More About Finding Your Voice

Sometimes, the most important thing about Podcamp is finding people who are open, honest and helpful.  It’s having discussions that aren’t always comfortable, but do get you thinking and give you a to do list a mile long.  The discussion we had about women in digital media had a lot of people expressing their views, in an open, non-judgmental way, pushing each other to see their side, and challenge their beliefs.

Chris Penn had a great blog post about this today, regarding arguing your limitations.  I wrote a blog post back in 2006 about the Fear of Success that’s relevant to this discussion as well.  I think many times, we’re held back by our fear of taking chances, of what other people might think, of trying and what failure might feel like.  But if you decide that failure isn’t so bad, and you can learn a thing or two from whatever mistakes you might make, you don;t have to risk being perfect all the time.  You lose that sense of fear and doubt and just start swinging for the fences.

This change in mindset is vitally important for everyone to have.  I’ve been talking about how fame itself is not always the Nirvana everyone expects it to be- it doesn’t solve your problems, but adds pressures of its own.  But that doesn’t mean fame or popularity is bad- you just have to be prepared for it.  I honestly feel I can do anything, but I just have to be ready for the consequences of my actions, which include criticism, and I consider that a good thing.

It makes me sad when people feel powerless in their lives.  You always have choices.  Sometimes they are good or bad; sometimes they are limited by things like money on hand, but you have to look at every barrier in your path to success as nothing more than a hurdle you need to pass through.  It’s not a brick wall, just an obstacle that you need to figure out how to get around.

People seem to have a hard time with the concept that there are few, if any, rules in this new digital media space.    No one has a magic formula for you to follow, but many people can help guide your path, because each path is as unique as you are.  And it does take work and dedication to find your voice and your niche, but when you do, it’s the best feeling in the world.
Podcamp itself started as an experiment, a laboratory of people and passions, and to date, its been wildly successful.  By standing up and offering to help at the first Podcamp, I got to know people who are now some of my closest friends ever, people who I admire and who challenge me to take risks, to try, and to do every day.  They will tell me when I’m crazy, and help nurture ideas and watch them come to life. They are my friends, my mentors, my colleagues, and my extended family.

Podcamp, in all of its forms, continues to be a lab where you can make anything your heart desires or dreams of, and where you can find others who will help you make that dream a reality.
But it requires extending yourself, dreaming out loud, sharing, trying, risking and going beyond your comfort zone.

Letting go of the fear is really hard, but the rewards, the freedom, the sense of possibility, is worth every risk you take and more.

And as I said almost three years ago now:

We are all in charge of our own personal destiny. We have to be able to recognize opportunity when it comes knocking, and not be afraid to take a risk or say Yes, when No seems so much safer and more conservative and more “Sensible”. We have to be willing to take in other perspectives, but be willing to have the confidence in our own ideas and vision, and be willing to drag those dreams out into the sunlight as well.

What do you think?

Finding your voice, your superpowers, what makes you special is key to finding your place, your niche, and what makes you special.  And I could not be more proud to meet the fellow travelers on this path through a little conference with the subtle misnomer of Podcamp.

Tags: CC Chapman, pcb4, podcamp, podcamp boston, podcamp philly, ron ploof

Things to know about Podcamp

This year, we seem to be getting lots of questions and confusion about the difference between Podcamps and Barcamps. So I thought I’d do a brief post here so everyone is clear.

1.Podcamp is Not Barcamp. This is a biggie.  Barcamp veterans often write me and say that they think Podcamp is not a “true” unconference because we have altered the format to be a bit more of a bridge between a Barcamp Unconference and a regular old conference.  To be honest, this seems like a silly debate to me.  The decisions on how a Podcamp differs from a Barcamp, which I’ll discuss below, were made to help make the events accessible and comfortable for people who are used to regular conferences, while maintaining the community feel and the basic rules of Unconferences.

2. The Podcamp Rules (Click here to read Chris Penn’s Excellent Blog post on this subject)

Here are the Six Rules of PodCamp:

1. All attendees must be treated equally. Everyone is a rockstar.
2. All content created must be released under a Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
3. All attendees must be allowed to participate. (subject to limitations of physical space, of course)
4. All sessions must obey the Law of 2 Feet – if you’re not getting what you want out of the session, you can and should walk out and do something else. It’s not like you have to get your money’s worth!
5. The event must be new media/digital media focused – blogging, podcasting, video on the net, social networks, etc.
6. The financials of a PodCamp must be fully disclosed in an open ledger, except for any donor/sponsor who wishes to remain anonymous.

3.  The way we do Session Planning.

For most Podcamps, we set up a wiki or Google Form where people can sign up to speak in advance- once the spots are filled, they are filled.  We also attempt to leave at least one set of rooms open for people choosing to add content the day of the event, Bar-Camp Style, or to extend conversation sstarted in sessions.

The reason we allow pre-planned sessions is that it gives people an idea of what to expect at an event, and whether they should sign up or not.  Surprisingly, many people don’t want to commit to attending an event where they don’t know who is speaking, or on what topic!   This tweak has actually been shown to help boost attendance at Podcamps, and aids the organizers immensely when planning for any swag or amenities they might provide.  It also helps potential sponsors have a better idea of what Podcamp is about and thus make a more informed decision about their sponsorship investment in the community.

4. We don’t “vote” on sessions to decide whether or not they should be presented. While some events, like South by Southwest take suggestions or submissions for sessions and then let the community vote for what they want to see, we don’t.  As a result, Podcamp is not a popularity contest, but if you want to present, it’s always prudent to register as a speaker and submit your session as early as possible.

Venues do not have infinite space, and we have a limited number of sessions available over the course of a weekend.  Sessions are usually 30 to 45 minutes long rather than rapid fire, five minute presentations.  So with limited physical space and limited time, we can’t always accomodate everyone who wants to speak.  This can lead to disappointment for people who don’t feel they were warned that sessions spaces were getting tight, but the lesson here is that the early bird gets the worm and those who procrastinate may lose out on opportunities.

5. Unlike Barcamp, we don’t use the “morning of” sign up for sessions. As discussed above, many podcamps, but not all, have moved away from the day of sign up for sessions.  Often, this is to avoid the chaos of hundreds of people gathered around a whiteboard, or problems caused by being unable to access an online schedule.  Because our attendees are computer and internet afficianados, their ability to crash and slow internet connectivity is close to legendary.  All of these folks  in one spot often leads to connectivity issues, even with robust wi-fi systems.

6. Some Podcamps charge an admissions fee. Podcamp started out as a free to attend conference like Barcamp.  But after we found that only about half on the people signing up to attend Podcamp were showing up, several Podcamps, including Podcamp Boston and Podcamp Philly have instituted a nominal fee.  This has raised attendance rates to well over 80%, making planning for space and for events much easier and much more predictable.  The admissions fees are used, typically, either to pay for event-related expenses like facility rental and insurance, or some have donated the admissions fees to charitable causes.  In either case, the fees are well below typical conference fees and we have yet to have people question the value proposition.

I understand that Podcamp is not everyone’s idea of an unconference, and some of the community-organized features can frustrate those expecting more of a professional conference experience.  I look at Podcamp as being partly a laboratory, we are not only are learning from each other during the event, but with each version, we try new things and make improvements to try to do better each and every time.

The Organizers are volunteers, and do this for the love of the community and their belief in the experience that Podcamp delivers.  It is not a profit making enterprise, but seeks to run budget neutral for each event.  The organizers from each community conference live in the community and the surrounding area, and while the Podcamp Foundation has set forth the rules for what constitutes a Podcamp and what does not, the formal affiliation between events remains largely in name and spirit only.

While the Directors of the Foundation, including myself, Chris Penn and Chris Brogan, strive to provide advice and guidance for any Podcamp or potential Podcamp organizer, we are not directly involved in producing Podcamps outside of those we have always been associated with at this point in time.  I’m happy to help anyone start a Podcamp in their area, and we are currently working on an e-book in our “free” time to try to make this process easier.

Please let me know if you have any additional questions about Podcamp I can answer in the comments, and I look forward to seeing you at Podcamp Boston and/or Podcamp Philly.

Tags: barcamp, chris brogan, chris penn, podcamp, podcamp philly, unconference

Reputation Management

Boy, am I glad that Trust Agents, by friends Chris Brogan and Julien Smith is coming out at the end of the summer.  I wish it were available tomorrow.

I was reading the New York Times this morning, and there’s a bunch of articles about Twitter including The Tweet Smell of Success-outlining how making it to Twitter’s suggested people to follow list balloons people’s followers enormously, and “Hey Just a Minute (and Why Google isn’t Twitter)“, suggesting that proper indexing may take more than instantaneous ranking, meaning Google may lag behind twitter for trending topics of importance.

Let me say this loud and clear- Popularity is not the same thing as a Trust Agent.  Being popular does not make you right.  Being popular is a one way, not a two way relationship, which is really what the Cluetrain Manifesto and the change in marketing strategies over the past few years have been all about.  While a quick look at Maslow’s Heirarchy of needs tell us that people certainly need a sense of belonging, of friendship, and self-esteem,  certain metrics like Twitter Followers or friends on Facebook are somewhat false and ephemeral versions of getting these needs met.

Humans don’t like to feel alone- we’re social creatures.  Social networks allow us to try to fill this need from a distance- we get to do it while maintaining a sense of privacy, a sense of safety in our own homes, communicating  through words or images, but less frequently, face to face.  We’re extending this by the rise of fantastic tools like Go To Meeting- where you can have virtual conferences without ever leaving the safety of your office, or experiencing the hassle or time suck of air travel.  But all these virtual tools can’t totally replace the face to face meeting, and the thrill you get from meeting someone you’ve never seen before in person.

For example, this week, I finally got to meet Liz Strauss and Shel Holtz at BlogPotomac.  Liz and Shel are well known to me through their blogs.  Shel wrote Tactical Transparency with my good friend and Podcamp NYC lead organizer, John Havens.  Liz runs an amazing conference I’d love to attend, but haven’t yet had the chance, called SOBcon, also known as Biz School for Bloggers. It was great to get to see them in person and touch base, and I wish we had had more time to talk.  But even in these few minutes, I got a sense of how much their online presences jibed with their real selves, and this face to face meeting makes these casual, online communications a bit more real and two-way.  This makes a few tentative steps to a real world friendship, especially now that I sense that the real world people and their online reputations match- they are authentic to the core.

Likewise, this upcoming weekend, I’ll be attending Podcasters Across Borders-one of the few Podcasting-centric conferences left that hasn’t become equally about social media and online tools, like Podcamp Philly’s evolution.  (This year’s will be October 3 & 4th at Temple University, but I digress.)  Meeting people in person allows you to get a sense of them that takes a lot longer online.  Like Malcolm Gladwell talked about in Blink, there’s a bit of calculus or rapid cognition your brain does that let’s you know whether someone is for real- whether you’ll be friends or not, and whether there’s a sense of intellectual chemistry present or not.   Richard Bach once said, “Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years,” and I think we’ve all had that experience. There’s nothing that replaces a handshake, or looking into someone’s eyes, and figuring out whether they’re for real or not.  And I am much more interested in having these kind of friendships and relationships than I am with the ones from unknown followers garnered in  social networks.

Now having said this, I’ve obviously had online friendships become great ones that move into the real world, and real world friendships that are challenged by time and distance, where online communication keeps the ambient information flowing.  Facebook and Twitter have let me communicate more consistently with relatives, reconnect with school friends, and this is priceless.  The sense of connection with people I care about is enhanced greatly through social media.

But the one-sided, fandom sorts of connections, like my admiration of David Pogue and Lisa Belkin of the New York Times, I’m not fooled into thinking these are relationships.  Even while I would be happy to help either David or Lisa with promoting their books, and I would talk about them at the drop of a hat, I don’t know them, I just like their work and admire them.  This relationship is not reciprocal.  The objects of my admiration may benefit from my feelings, only as much as I am willing to talk about them and influence my friends to do the same, but I only benefit from their continued production of great content.  They broadcast, and I am just a receiver, with the option to amplify and rebroadcast if I choose to.  The signal is  one way.

This brings me to my point- the collection of followers on social networks outside of people you really know and value is just collecting a bunch of fans or groupies.  It’s fine and it can certainly boost one’s ego, but it definitely strips away some of the two-way communication and added value that happens when communication is supplemented by a real relationship.

Your “real” friends know what kind of information you want or need, and try to deliver that to you, like proxies or deputies, seeking out information and acting as your filters of the firehose of data available.  The communication is bespoke and tailored to your needs.    These are the people who will also pick you up at the airport, the ones who will feed you, the ones who will be there whether or not you are seen as important to the masses.  Like your family, they love you for who you are, not what you do.  Even if you suddenly did something awful, or your reputation was somehow tainted, your friends will be there for you, regardless, and will be the first ones to offer help or even just a shoulder to cry on- whatever you might need.  You may not always need what they offer, but the fact that they are the first to go to bat for you- that’s something money can’t buy.

We’re going to have to figure out how, in the days where anyone can amass a following through online channels, where the value chain lies.  Your reputation is now something that’s much more public than ever before.  You know who is talking about you, good and bad.  In high school,  everyone thought they wanted to know what people were saying about them behind their backs, now, for better or worse, we can all find out.  It can make us easily hurt by criticism and feel like we have to tailor messages to disgruntled members of the crowd, when we also have to acknowledge that trying to please everyone has always been the surest method to please no one, especially ourselves.

In the end, it’s the people who become our Trust Agents- the people who have repeatedly earned our trust and respect, who deliver on what’s promised and more, that will become the currency that will carry the day.  Where reputation is more fragile than ever before, subject to commentary and pot shots from any direction, the power of the real world friendships and the increase in trust forged by the old-fashioned handshake will be what lasts and makes sure your boat can withstand the toughest seas.

Tags: blog potomac, chris brogan, john C Havens, julien smith, liz strauss, PAb, podcamp philly, podcasters across borders, Shel Holtz, sobcon, tactical transparency, trust agents, twitter

ROI of Your Brain

Many times my husband will ask me whether or not the things I am choosing to do are focused or not.  He sees some of my projects and interests as being distractors from the core mission.  I often think he is right, but other times, the core mission is not just one project or focus, it’s me, as a whole package.

Sometimes I’ll go to a conference and think that I’m not going to get that much out of the experience, or that it’s a waste of time.  But inevitably, there’s some connection, incident, or some piece of knowledge that comes out of the experience that makes it 100% worth my time and then some.  Sometimes, it’s using that fragment or connection to help someone else.  Sometimes, it’s being aware of something new that becomes useful in a week or two, or further down the line.

This means that whenever I start to consider narrowing my focus, or limiting who I follow on Twitter, or adding friends on Facebook, or whatever goes into the “more” category, I get nervous that I am going to miss out on one of these great moments where I can really help someone, or get something special accomplished.  It means it’s hard when I miss evening events in Philly because I live so far out in the suburbs, and our schedule makes it almost impossible to do.  It means I wish I could go to more and different conferences, to learn more and explore more.

My friend Mark Blevis and I started talking about Curiosity when he came to Podcamp Philly.  If you are fundamentally curious, your brain automatically starts to ask the next question- Well- what about this?  Have you ever thought of that?  The boundaries of possibility and probability fall away to imagination and creativity, and can lead to some of the most exciting talks and ideas I’ve ever had.

Exploration, curiosity, critical and creative thinking are all neighbors, and all they require is that you leave your fear at the door.  You have to be willing to be wrong, to make naive suggestions, to take some risks, to be open and emotionally vulnerable, to be willing to be wrong, to fail and to even feel silly.

This is not always easy.  In fact, it often feels like you are walking a highwire without a net.  I often have to walk myself through the scary, fear driven stuff by saying “what’s th worst thing that could happen?”  Usually, it’s that someone would say no.  But more often than not, I find that No can be motivating to try something different- tinker, improve and try again, or try a different channel.

All of these things are a key part of having a resilient mindset.  It’s what we all need to have, especially kids- a place where we can try and fail and try again, in an effort to make things right.  We have to make it safe for them to try and fail, and not to be humiliated in the process.  We have to be willing to be seen as foolish,  a dreamer, an idealist, or even quixotic, tilting at windmills to try to make things happen.  It may take a lot of work and a lot of tries to get things right, but when they are right, they are spectacular.

And – here’s the big secret- once you start taking risks, the whole fear of humiliation lessens.  To the point, almost, where it’s even hard to imagine what would make me humiliated about anything that I’ve tried to accomplish, even if it fails.  Those mistakes are opportunities to learn and grow, and that’s what we all need- kids and adults alike.

Tags: brain, connections, curiosity, Mark blevis, podcamp philly, resiliency, ROI