I just got home from Podcamp Atlanta after a day chocked full of sessions all about podcasting, vidcasting and the sorts. As usual with these types of events, a good mix of different people at varying levels of capabilities and interests. Clearly, a number of people at the event have been doing podcasting for a good bit of time (measured in Internet time) while others, like myself, were curiously interested participants.
A nice and somewhat accurate piece on the Associated Press wire got picked up here today covering the event. Here’s a Macon Telegraph version of the article. Nice to see some coverage – better than we had at SoCon07.
What I liked and what could be improved:
- As an unconference, there was a lot less two-way moderated discussions and more typical presentations. In some cases, maybe the subject matter made that more palatable than usual. In other cases, not so much.
- The wireless sucked bad. It seemed not so bad in the main room downstairs, but was useless upstairs in the breakout rooms. When I could get on, it almost was so slow it was unbearable or timed out. I also got a number of upstream Proxy errors from Emory. Maybe they never envisioned 100+ people crammed packed in this venue trying to be online. If you’ve never been to Emory’s Miller-Ward Alumni house – it’s like an Ole English Manor and I envisioned silver-haired retired doctors sitting around smoking cigars and talking about their past and how they changed the world. It’s beautiful, eclectic – an amazing place. They probably need to upgrade their wireless access points for events that attract people with laptops in the future.
- There was *a lot* of schwag. I’ve never seen that much at this type of unconference. Lots of cools stuff like Snagit Pro and Camtasia from Techsmith, t-shirts, bags, pins, stickers, books from O’reilly and really cool stickers from Creative Commons. We had tons of giveways during the day and that made it fun. I won a nice wax candle for my wife.
- I did another “Entrepreneur 2.0″ discussion – and I was really worried going in to it based on earlier breakouts I attended – that I would have an audience that would be conditioned to sit and be quiet. I didn’t prepare any materials and after having lunch with Lee and Adam – who didn’t either – I felt a little better. My discussion went well (at least from what I thought and a few people afterwards) and it was very interactive. I mostly asked a few questions and made a few comments throughout out the discussion. There were some interesting perspectives on my question about “lower barrier to entries vs. remaining competitive”.
- The audio in the main room wasn’t too great. It seemed like there was about $5,000 worth of audio equipment upfront, but yet the overhead speaker system sounded terrible. I expect it was because the facility didn’t expect this type of event as the speakers looked like something from a 1970 grade school PA system. I hope the recordings turn out OK.
- Lots of food and refreshments available during the day. It’s always nice when there’s plenty of bottled water when you need it – not just at specified breaks.
- There was a lot of small rooms and locations that were comfortable to break out to and have small conversations without interrupting others or on-going discussions.
All in all, this was a well attended, well put together event. Amber and team did a great job at the organization and it was wonderful to continue to see people from different walks of lives and different expectations, get together to collaborate.
Check out the great photos from people that attended.
technorati tags: podcamp, podcampatlanta, atlanta, georgia, emory, unconference, podcasting
Popularity: 4% [?]
Other popular articles you might enjoy:
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
