To Fee Or Not To Fee

My summary of my time at PCB2 will have to wait in draft for a while – there’s something more pressing I want to talk about.

There’s a discussion taking place all over the web about this weekend’s decision to revoke PodCamp rule number 4. Before this, rule number 4 read: “All sessions and events must be free of charge to attend”. That rule is no more and organizers have now been presented with the option to charge a fee to attend PodCamp. There is, at the time of writing, a recommendation on the wiki that reads “sessions and events are strongly encouraged to be free to attend to allow as many people to attend as possible”, but it’s no longer enforced.

I said something on Saturday afternoon during the “PodCamp Retrospective” session which I’d like to repeat and build on here. Having been an attendee to both of Pittsburgh’s PodCamps, their PodCamp BootCamp, and PCB2, along with PAB 2007 and various one-day paid events – I can tell you that I see a clear difference between a PodCamp, and the for-paid events like PAB, or the session side of the PME (Note my exclusion of the vendor floor here).

To me, PodCamps seemed to be designed to bring new people into new media. To TEACH people what a podcast was, what blogging was, how to get your video podcast started or some basic SEO to ensure your blog didn’t get lost in the fray of the web. PodCamp, to me at least, wasn’t about the free food, or the free t-shirt, or the after-parties, or even the “fishbowl” people coming together to see each other. To me, PodCamp was about taking OUR community, and sharing it with others, to GROW the community, and bring new people in. It was the “new media school” in a day or two, and should have been used to expand the fishbowl into the aquarium. Then a pond. Then a lake. and, well, you get the idea.

We in this new media space are constantly moaning that our world seems to be tapering off. That we need to start reaching outside of the fishbowl and bring in new listeners. PodCamp IS our chance to do that. There is NO reason that Podcamp CAN’T be we, the new media community fishbowl, reaching out and teaching other what this space is. Will we be creating new content creators in the process? Sure! But there’s nothing that says that everyone who attends a PodCamp will become a content creator. And besides, what’s to say someone doesn’t come to learn some blogging tips, and walk out knowing a lot about how to LISTEN to a podcast. That’s one more content CONSUMER. Even if their blog never gets off the ground/

So, you’re asking, what about the other side?  What about it! There’s still plenty of room for “fishbowl” gatherings to occur. The PABs and PMEs and the like will still happen.We, the existing community, are still trying to better ourselves, and there’s nothing that says we have to stay still. The existing fishbowl folk are still going to group off at PodCamps, it’s human nature, but that shouldn’t be the FOCUS of the event. I don’t think I met anyone at PCB2 looking to get into this space or learn about it. They allhad a foot in it somewhere. Which was great, but didn’t make it feel ANYTHING like a podcamp to me.

So what about a fee? For a PodCamp, as I’ve defined it above, I say no. For the fishbowl events? Sure. If we went people to come to podcamps, learn about our space d then participate in it as either a content creator, or a content consumer, then we need to do as much as we can to lower the barriers. And if they go home without a free shirt, then so be it.

I’ll post more on where I think PodCamp should go tomorrow. This post was long enough.