OK, OK, “tomorrow” is obviously a term I use ambiguously. In any case, some thoughts about PodCamp Boston2.

First and foremost, I have to say the Podcamp Boston2 was extremely well-run, and easy to navigate. All of the sessions occurred in one enormous hallway, making it easy to find just about anyone you wanted to find. The technology mostly seemed to work, and there were plenty of seats. Registration was easy and painless. From an attendee point of view, the logistics worked.And frankly, given the remote and unfriendly venue, and the dire warnings about convention center security and the need to show IDs at every turn, I was apprehensive. But none of the potential badness materialized.

The quality of presenters, which is, of course, controlled by the people who sign up, themselves, was very good. Knowledgeable people took the time to make informed, useful presentations, and I learned a few things and copied down a few very useful URLs.

In the wake of the discussion here and elsewhere of the revocation of the “PodCamp must be free” rule, I’ve been trying to put some of my initial reactions in context. Rather than construct a narrative for you, I thought I would just put down some observations:

• Presentations tended toward the marketing and “new media” integration side of podcasting. New media has become fully buzzword-compliant, and speakers (and I would assume some portion of the audience) seem to be trying to figure out how to integrate podcasting into an overall nm strategy, rather than focusing on the practice of producing audio and video itself. I actually think that a tighter focus on podcasting is one of the great opportunities for the PodCamp model, and the thing that is most likely to keep new people who want to learn how to podcast interested in these events. I would also like to see organizers, to the extent they get involved in programming, work to encourage experienced podcasters to take on nuts and bolts topics of interest to new producers.
• Session interactivity seemed pretty low — at least when compared to other PodCamps I’ve attended. I blame this in part on the size of the audiences. It’s hard to get interactive with a couple hundred people. But PodCamp Boston2’s session culture seemed a lot like a typical tech conference. Is this because presenters were asked to submit session topics weeks in advance, and because last year’s “let’s put on a session” aesthetic was not promoted? Don’t get me wrong: every session I attended had ample opportunities for q&a, but there wasn’t much banter back and forth between presenters and audiences.
• Much has been made of the high (50 percent) no-show rate among attendees, and the 10 percent of speaker no-shows. I completely sympathize with organizers who expended funds for name badges, t-shirts and, other items that went to waste. Folks who register should understand the impact their absence has, and understand that solutions like charging an admission fee, or doing away with attendee freebies like shirts, will be the result. As an attendee, however, the size of the event felt about right, if not a little bit larger than would have been ideal, mostly because of the size of some of the more popular sessions (see above.). The concept of no-show speakers in the PodCamp model is interesting, though, because as originally practiced, the looser structure allowed for impromptu sessions, led by people who happened to be on hand, and based on the ebb and flow of audience interest. Again, I think this is among the benefits of the PodCamp structure. But the advantages of loosey-goosey structure grow harder to defend when the number of attendees goes over 500-600. Perhaps one option would be to establish a core curriculum, with trusted speakers pledging their participation, but leaving some sessions “open” til the day of the event. this would allow for more organic programming, while ensuring that attendees would have a good experience with sessions on topics of broad interest.

I enjoy PodCamp in all of its forms: I’ve been to four of them, each with its own personality and quirks. There is no one way to do a PodCamp event well, and different participants have different expectations. The openness of the model, as set out in the PodCamp Rules, is its real strength, however. I hope that continues, and that PodCamp remains a place where people new to the podcasting medium can learn how to do what they do better, and retain their excitement. PodCamp is at its best when it is not trying to duplicate the model of major conferences like New Media Expo and BlogWorld Expo. Those events have a very important role to play, and so does PodCamp. It’s just not the same one.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 1st, 2007 at 7:59 am and is filed under Blog Entry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.