The Perth posse have it down. They know how to organise community meetups, get the people along and exchange information.
Some months ago, the Perth contingent cared enough about having Podcamp in their city, they outvoted other larger cities. And the result was another well run, well attended and though provoking event.
Apart from the personal name brands such as Cameron Reilly, Stilgherrian, Duncan Riley, Leslie Nassar, Bronwen Clune, Richard Giles, Myles Eftos, Gary Barber, Nick Cowie… the conversations and discussions made me think.
- What is a brand?
- Separating brand from name
- Being critical of your employer: is it OK.
- Transparency/honesty
- Geeks having a responsibility to use technology for good
Attending conferences is important. It’s the talking within, before and after the events where you get to know your peers in this industry. Pass on advice and listen to honest feedback. Question them and be questioned. Rethink your strategy. Move with the industry.
It seems that podcasting is now the term that is used for both audio and video casting over the internet. We are in early days, and have yet to fully exploit the iPods, iPhones and PCs. Just watching or listening passively runs counter to the web 2.0 read/write-ness of this media. We need offline write (iPod). More innovation is required. Competition will help.
There are a stream of videos and photos appearing. tag: podcampperth07
Unconferences are the right style. More discussion and less formal sales and marketing. In retrospect and over beer discussion, an un-panel (thanks Sue Waters for this. excellent idea!) at the end would have made more feedback and greater exchange of learnt ideas. Too formal one-way, questions only at the end sessions are a mode of the past.
Cameron Reilly has really moved my thinking on some points. A part of me working for Microsoft is about being a part of being a Geek for Good. Movember is just a small example of this. His thinking on our future in relation to a virtual worlds and lives, attention and intention is really starting to gel. And more than gel in his head.
Listening to Duncan Riley also cleared up my thinking on the personal branding side of blogging. I doubt that this is a major strategic change for this blog, but I have yet to think the feedback through.
Leslie Nassar, full of robot awesome, presented ID3v2.3 tags and what that means specifically to mp3s; and as always educated me. I miss Leslie in Sydney. Come back, dude.
Stilgherrian, a geek and now journalist for crikey.com.au discussed the internet and the impact on the current election in Australia. Who are the 30%? What impacts them when they vote? I am going to enjoy reading his next article, and I’m waiting for his cat picture so I can lolcat it. Yes, I am using it as a adjective.
Other places to read people’s feedback and thoughts:
- Matt Vapor’s Blog
- Luke Evans: the who’s who at Podcampsydney
- Tama Leaver on Podcasting in Education
- Simone set up a Flickr photo pool
- That funny tatooed geek Grum with his Grumblr Feed
- Wolfbyte.net, high on pain killers because there was an alien implant in his big toe.
- KerryJ from Neotenous Tech has many posts, and I have her on camera with her geek story
- Duncan Riley has some inciteful feedback, especially on unconferences. Time for more UN, less conference
- Stilgherrian’s first thoughts. I wonder what his crikey.com.au article is going to be about?
- Adam Purcell on PodCamp Perth. It’s partly his fault the Podcamp occurred.
- The Boomtown Rap from Ross. And funnier second post.
- Paul from The Taste Blog
- The quiet, yet ultra smart and best dad/host in the world Richard Giles
- The Geek Stories goes PodcampPerth
- Chris Saad on the new au.Blognation
- Adam Purcell’s small video
Great read 🙂
Good read!
Yah, we WAers know how to rock….
BTW, I’m still at the afterparty, milking the bartab 😉
Actually the part of like the most about unconferences is the fact they encourage sharing and exchanging of ideas.
Would love to see all conferences change to this type of format because sharing and knowledge gain is greater when you actually allow (encourage) the audience to participate. When you think about it that is what Web 2.0 is all about and yet in many conferences we expect people to sit quietly in the audience and soak up all the knowledge — no wonder I go crazy!
Wish I had been able to attend Cameron’s and Duncan’s sessions 🙁 fortunately they are being podcasts.
Make that Podcamp Perth 😉
Cheers for the link. Your chat yesterday has given me some more hope for Microsoft. GO MICROSOFT!
Nick, great write-up. And thanks for your thoughtful comments during my session (and others!).
Apart from the piece I’m writing for Crikey, I’ll also post some longer pieces on the themes raised at PodCamp over the next week or so at stilgherrian.com.
Dunno that I necessarily want the label “journalist” — or did I say that?
Thanks for coming Nick. And thanks to Microsoft for sponsoring. The message about making Rational Decisions is one which I didn’t touch on in my post but it is a good message and one which really needs reinforcing.
And for the record, there _was_ an alien implant in my big toe but that isn’t _why_ I was hopped up on painkillers.
P.S. I guess _text_ isn’t the same as text. Ah Well.
P.P.S. I love Simones trackback which essentially reads:
blah blah blah Nick Hodge blah blah blah
Thanks very much for coming to the event Nick. It was great to see you at the event, and spread the load of Cameron’s wrath on his podcast :).
Looking forward to catching up again soon, either your way, or back in Perth….again :). (You coming for the Byte Me Festival.)
Thanks for the write-up Nick!
Hey Nick, great seeing you at Podcamp! Must thank yourself and Microsoft for sponsoring which made it happen.
Thanks for joining us at Podcamp Nick. Always a pleasure to have you in Perth and look forward to the next time.
It was great finally meeting you after all the Flickring back and forth. The Perth folk did an amzing job — it was well worth the trip!
So where’s the 2008 Podcamp? Or have I missed it all ready?
http://www.edgeoftheweb.org.au/
Not Podcamp, but is my next trip to Perth!
Looking forward in seeing you back in Perth Nick!
Any excuse to travel to Perth. It’s just like Brisbane, but 20% more beautiful and the women are babes !