Passing Credit - How The Mentor Lounge Happened

I’ve gotten a lot of great feedback from people on this year’s Mentor Lounge at PodCamp Toronto and I’d like to take a quick minute to explain where it came from, and how it became the session that occurred this weekend.

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m a big believer in the spirit of PodCamp organizers learning from other PodCamps. This means that where NYC slips up, Boston improves on, and the mistakes Boston make then get improved in Toronto, and so on. This allows us, as event organizers, to not only build an event that was better then our last event - but to try to build one that is better then ANY of the last events. This played a big role in my bringing the Mentor Lounge to Toronto.

Hello, Pittsburgh

I’ve attended all of the PodCampy events in Pittsburgh. They’ve held 2 full-blown PodCamps, and a single-day, newbie-focused BootCamp sandwiched in the middle. They’re also in planning mode for their 3rd PodCamp this fall. Prior to the BootCamp, the organizing team noticed that people new to the space were hesitant to walk up to someone else and say ‘hello’. They often didn’t mind talking to a presenter immediately following the presentation, but beyond that, they kept to themselves.

Online, there is no “barrier” to connecting. If you want to say hi to someon, you go to their blog and leave a comment. Or you send them an email. If they never respond, so be it - you simply assume they were busy and move along. No harm, no fowl. But if you go to say hello to someone in person, there’s a much scarier risk of rejection. People are scared they won’t be noticed, or they’ll be ignored. This stings a lot more in the real world then it does in the digital one.

So the team in Pittsburgh wanted to break down that invisible wall at BootCamp and make it easier for someone to say hello. The idea was pretty simple: A room was set aside, called the ‘Mentor Lounge’ and people could consider it an open space where anybody within it’s walls was willing to be talked to. You could approach them and say hello, or ask questions, or trade business cards… Anything you’d like - with no fear of rejection. Sadly, the room stayed mostly empty. A follow-up attempt at PodCamp Pittsburgh 2, this time with coloured dots on name badges to represent interest areas, also didn’t go over so well.

Toronto and Beyond

I knew the idea could be improved upon, and set out to do that with Toronto. This time, rather than create an empty room, I’d put people in it. Specifically, I’d put together a panel of people willing to answer questions from other people. No slide decks, no presentations, not even a projector. Just a panel, a moderator and an audience. It went over wonderfully. People were, at first, a little hesitant to raise hands… But once the ball got rolling (Occasionally with a “So everyone in this room knows everything they’d like to about [topic]?” prod) things kept moving pretty well. Questions were answered, people connected, and that invisible barrier was all but gone. At least for the hour and a half we were in there.

A lot went right with my attempt at the Mentor Loung, but in the interest of helping the other PodCamps looking to adopt this, I’ve already asked myself what went wrong. For one, we only had 75 minutes - start to end. This meant that to break things up into the four major categories we covered (audio podcasting, video podcasting, blogging and social networking) each only received 15 minutes. At the end of all 4 there were still questions in the room, so this could have, and likely should have, gone on much longer. I also regret not giving more of an introduction to who people were. When we swapped panels, I simply gave names and continued into the next question - I think more details on who the person was (And why they were on the panel) would have helped.

One other thing I think went really well was opening up a seat to the room. When I found myself with a free seat during the video panel, I simply asked the room if anyone knew enough about creating, editing and posting video to answer questions on it. Someone volunteered. The same happened in the blogging panel. I think this really drove the fact that the people on the panel are simply human, too, and that anyone in the room could be a part of this space.

I know that some of the organizing team from Pittsburgh, NYC and I believe Ohio were watching the Toronto event closely and I look forward to seeing how, or if, they adapt and integrate the lounge into their events.

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