PodCampAZ 2009 Roundup ☀
Another PodCampAZ, the “Relevant Media Unconference”, is in the books. The 2009 edition did not seem as lively to me, especially on day 2 when the session load seemed to be rather light. Maybe it’s due to the present economic climate, or perhaps because of a major auto race and Arizona Cardinals game were also scheduled on the same day. Or diminished presence of “webceleb” personalities from last year’s edition.
Still, a great punch of knowlege and I was delighted to be able to attend the two day conference this last weekend (November 14-15, 2009).
In the roundup below, going to just link to twitter accounts — you can navigate to home pages and other voliminous online spheres from that launching point…
Sessions attended…
- Eric Myers (Everything Wordpress) — I entered this session, presented by “wonderkid” high school freshman Eric, after reading the recommendation for existing WordPress users, but bolted out when it began with “how to install WordPress”.
- Jeff Moriaty (Improvisational Media) — how the art of improv comedy can help you graft a more effective social media presence.
- Paul Valach (Facebook for Adults) — my friend Paul also conducted some WordPress 101 sessions.
- Israel Hyman (A Business Model That Has Worked for Me Three Times: How to be a Fulltime Podcaster) — basically the recipe is as follows: scan online/traditional educational offerings for cost in a subject matter you have expertise in, develop quality content, build up an audience of 1000+ subscribers, convert to a premium model, continue trickling a few “free” offerings while incrementally increasing six month subscription fee to your archives, and sit back, profit, and eventually quit your daytime job.
- Douglas E. Welch (My Podcasting Workflow: Audio and Video, A Real World Example) — a complete walkthrough of the podcasting process, from recording and editing to hosting.
- Dan Feierabend (The Audacity of Podcasting: Using Free Tools to Produce Your Podcast) - using Audacity and other F/OSS tools to podcast.
- charltonb (There’s cloud, then there’s cloud)
- Brent Spore (The Social Universe) — a spirited discussion that pitted older folks expressing confusion about social media definitions, groups, and jargon v. younger whippersnappers adamant in vociferous proclamations that you should “just do it”, plugin and discover for yourself.
- Kevin Kittredge (Podcasting 101: The Technical Side) — content is king, but quality is queen. Hobbyist podcasting on a budget.
- Time Barrow (The Online Video Conversation: Yeah, you can use it for that) — fascinating session on the emergence of online video tools like Viddler, Phreadz, Seesmic, TokBox, etc.… as two-way conversation tools, instead of traditional text based dialog. What is easier to compose? A 30 second video or an email?
- Evo Terra (5 Reasons Your Podcast Technically Sucks) — Evo is a gifted, knowledgable, opinionated and passionate speaker on podcasting. And he gave a good session on dos and don’ts of how to encode, tag, mix, and name your podcasts.
On all the podcasting talks, a common thread was the use of one piece of free software — The Levelator. While many podcasters use Audacity (as do I) to record and/or edit, others prefer Adobe Audition or the Mac built-in Garage Band. But all strongly instructed the audience to use The Levelator.
Other speakers of interest…
- Jay Baer (Instigating a Thriving Blog Community From Scratch)
- acydlord (World Wide WTF: Where am I?)
- Francine Hardaway (The Coming of Real Time)
- Brian Shaler (How Personal Branding Made Me Rich and Famous)
- Katie Charland (Social Media & Relationships: How to maintain relationships and professionalism when everything is on the web)
- Heather Lynne Herr (To Be or Not To Be Me: Avoiding Multiple Personality Schizophrenia Online)
- Clintus (Video Blogging on the Go)
- Josh Strebel (WordPress setup the Right Way: Themes, Plugins & Widgets)
- Tyler Hurst (Comment Marketing)
Yes, I’ve omitted a whole bunch of other conference presenters. To see tidbits on them, go grok PodCampAZ.org. Or follow @podcampaz or #podcampaz for more reports, photos, video, etc.….
Prizes were given away — I so coveted one of the snowball mics, but did score a baseball cap, as well as some GoDaddy giveaways — a beanie cap and car sun shield. Also, don’t know who provided the free cupcakes, but they were delicious.
Already looking forward to PodCampAZ 2010 and would like to be more involved — including an offer to present a session on Tumblr if TPTB are willing.
