Transistioning Back To Normal Life

It’s now been three days since PodCamp Toronto 2008 wrapped up and about time I posted something.  This was the 5th one I’ve attended, and the first I’ve helped organize, and I had an absolute blast doing it.
I gave 2 sessions this weekend: one on how I’ve been slowly abandoning desktop application in favour of [...]

It’s now been three days since PodCamp Toronto 2008 wrapped up and about time I posted something.  This was the 5th one I’ve attended, and the first I’ve helped organize, and I had an absolute blast doing it.

I gave 2 sessions this weekend: one on how I’ve been slowly abandoning desktop application in favour of web-based alternatives, and the other one was a getting-started session on TalkShoe. I also moderated the ever-evolving Mentor Lounge, and sat on a panel called “Twitter 101″ to a standing-room-only crowd.

As this was my first time helping to organize one of these events, I wasn’t too sure what to expect. I ended up doing a lot of registration desk sitting and hallway monitoring over the weekend, just to make sure attendees were able to find what they came in to see. It was really interesting to hear the reasons why people were showing up throughout the day.

I want to give a big thanks to Connie Crosby, Dave Fleet, Rob Lee, Katherine Matthews, Sean McGaughey, Jay Moonah and Eden Spodek who were all involved  in organizing the event. I also want to congratulate Mark Blevis, Bob Goyetche, Rob and Katherine on the very successful “Zero to Podcasting” track they put on this weekend. There was a lot of buzz in the halls about it.

I’ve always supported the idea that PodCamps, as a whole, should learn from our own mistakes and over the weekend I took a number of notes about what I felt we did right, and wrong, so that other events such as NYC, Ohio and Pittsburgh can learn from where we slipped and better their own events. This can the let us better our own event in 2009.

I’ll be posting more about the weekend as the next few weeks go on. That’s it for now.

Help?

Whoa. The feedback on Twitter for this one was massive, so I thought a “bigger-than-140″ description would help.
Here’s what I’m looking to accomplish. I have a blog… You’re reading it. I also will soon be maintaining another blog (Over at TalkShoe). What I’m looking to do is spoon-feed posts (In the ‘TalkShoe’) category into the [...]

Whoa. The feedback on Twitter for this one was massive, so I thought a “bigger-than-140″ description would help.

Here’s what I’m looking to accomplish. I have a blog… You’re reading it. I also will soon be maintaining another blog (Over at TalkShoe). What I’m looking to do is spoon-feed posts (In the ‘TalkShoe’) category into the blog on Talkshoe… Without logging into the TalkShoe blog to do so. I’ll also be maintaining 2 audio podcasts (Each with it’s own feed) and a possible video podcast (Again, with a feed) which I’d like it to feed in, too.

So essentially, that blog would be a combination of:

1. Posts I type into it.
2. Posts I type here that get filed under ‘TalkShoe’
3. Any episode on podcast feed 1.
4. Any episode on podcast feed 2.
5. Any episode on video podcast feed 1.

Essentially… turning it into a tumblog of sorts.

Any ideas?

Makin’ Bacn!

So this weekend I had the great fortune of traveling to Pittsburgh for Podcamp Pittsburgh 2. What a blast. Double points, and timbits, to Locobone for the ride from Niagra Falls. Thanks again.
PodcampPGH2 didn’t disappoint. In addition to meeting a bunch of new people, I got to learn things, talk tech/web (Something that doesn’t happen [...]

So this weekend I had the great fortune of traveling to Pittsburgh for Podcamp Pittsburgh 2. What a blast. Double points, and timbits, to Locobone for the ride from Niagra Falls. Thanks again.

PodcampPGH2 didn’t disappoint. In addition to meeting a bunch of new people, I got to learn things, talk tech/web (Something that doesn’t happen often enough in K-town), be pointed to what sounds to be a really cool day from Adobe, and hang out with existing friends.

I also got to present a new presentation from TalkShoe, ‘Your First Shoes’. I’ll have the slides on the web soon. It went over pretty well to an ever-growing group finalizing around 30 people.

And I helped coin ‘bacn’. Oops.

So bacn, if you don’t already know, is the mail you want… But not right now. It’s the middle class of email. Emails from your mom are not bacn - that’s a good, legitimate email. Emails alerting you that you won a foreign lottery is not bacn - that’s spam. What about the Facebook notifications? Or Twitter notifications? Or the Amazon recommendations? Or the countless newsletters? Those emails, while informational, aren’t something you generally have time for. That middle class, the emails you want, just not right now, are bacn.

Now, bacn does have a web site. And it has a forum. And a PSA. But most of the publicity has come from the many many many many many posts around the internet. Wow.

Was a good weekend. Who wants to send me to Boston?