Podcamp Montreal Day 1: Considering Ourselves

Day 1 of Podcamp Montreal was a resounding success. The energy of this event is phenomenal…people are really enthusiastic and the whole place just seems to be a buzz of activity and creatitivity.

The presentations yesterday were really terrific. Sylvain Grand’Maison told us how to not suck. He gave some awesome tips to content creators, pointing out some obvious and not so obvious ways to help ensure the quality of the content you are putting out, whether it be a podcast, a blog, or a tweet, is up to snuff. What I want to know is, where did he get that fabulous green font???

Unfortunately due to some work stuff that came up, I had to forego the session with Mitch Joel and David Usher. But the room was absolutely bulging to the seams, so I get the distinct impression it was a valuable session.

Connie Crosby and Eden Spodek of the Community Divas podcast put on a great little talk about how they have developed their podcast. These lovely ladies are new to podcasting. They spoke highly of their podcasting mentor, Jay Moonah, and in addition to passing on some great advice they’ve gotten from people, they also weren’t afraid to put questions to the audience, to find out how other people do things. This just proves the community theory of social media. Podcamps provide a safe, open forum where people don’t have to be afraid to ask questions if they don’t know something – even the presenters. The community is there to help. They do not judge. Use their wisdom, people!!

The day was capped off with a terrific chit chat facilitated by Jay Moonah on Old Media vs. New Media. As someone coming from an “Old Media” background, this is a topic I am quite passionate about. Like Jay, I believe that in order to know where we are going we need to know where we come from. It’s something I’m trying to pass onto my college class. The conversation (which included Mitch Joel, Bob Goyetche, and several others whose names escape me) revolved around how new media creators really “fit” into the media world. Is old media dead? Or is it just evolving, to encompass the changing landscape, where everyman can be the journalist. That’s a blog post for another time, but suffice it to say that there are vast and varied opinions on how we as the new media creators fit in. It was a great conversation and I wish it could have gone on for another hour or two!

Last night I was privileged to spend the evening at dinner with Cheryl (aka Fendergurl on Twitter), Allan Isfan, Dana (aka. WankerGirl on Twitter), Gavin (aka Gavin1980 on Twitter),  Sean Power from Akoha, and Christine from Miami. We ate at The Three Amigos on St. Denis and it was delicious!

Afterwards we walked around a bit and ended up at the Podcamp party at Benelux, where the DJ’s were spinning Duran Duran and the beer was micro-brewed and yummy.

The common theme of this Podcamp is really about us, as content creators, finding our voice. We have built communities, produced podcasts, personally branded ourselves, and now we are ready for the rest of the world to find out about us. I think the questions that will be answered over the next while are, “Where do we really fit in?” and “How do we expand the community beyond the tech-geek, early adopter communities?”.

Looking forward to Day 2, and exploring more ideas with all of you.