Podonomics

After listening to 680News this afternoon, I discovered Career Path’s Top 10 Career Resolutions. You can read the entire list here, but I especially liked this one:

Learn more about new technology: Technology is here to stay. If you’re a novice, shame on you. Communication is essential for business success. Take stock of where you’re the weakest and change that.

I highly recommend that you learn everything you can about podcasting. At least learn the basics because you can easily hire someone out to do all the techie stuff.

There are many ways to learn about podcasting and there’s no better way then attending an event. Check out the Podcamp wiki to find out if there’s a Podcamp happening in your city.

• If there is, put your name on the registration list and attend for free.
• If there isn’t, organize one.

Tags: podcasting, podcamp

I’ll be on CanoeLive tonight at 6pm to talk about business podcasting and Podcamp Toronto. Actually, it’ll be closer to 6:45pm, so if you’re near a TV set and you’re in the Toronto area, tune in to Channel 15 to catch the interview live.

If you’re not in Toronto, you’ll have to wait until the recording is posted on their website. Once it’s up, I’ll post the link here.

Update: The video clip is now live on the CanoeLive website. Click here for the direct link to the interview.

Tags: podcasting, Leesa Barnes, podcamp toronto, podcamp, business podcasting

If my trials in Second Life weren’t bad enough, it turns out that there’s a Podcamp being organized in Second Life (SL) for the end of January.

Oh boy!

While I’m still not a fan of Second Life due to the technical difficulties (yes, I’m blaming the tool as - of course - it had nothing to do with me), I’ll attend Podcamp Second Life to see if I can get to know SL a little bit better.

And while you’re at it, why don’t sign up to attend Podcamp Toronto taking place at Ryerson University on February 24-25, 2007?

No, not London, Ontario. I’m talking about London, England. Home of Big Ben, crisps and Prince William.

I’ve teamed up with a London-based blogging expert, Claire Raikes to help entrepreneurs, coaches, speakers, writers and other solopreneurs discover how to turbo-charge their businesses using blogs and podcasts in a special 2-day workshop happening on March 23 & 24, 2007.

We are hosting a series of preview calls where we’ll be answering questions about business blogging and podcasting that have been submitted via our preview page.

The first no-fee preview call is on Wednesday December 13, 2006 at 2:30pm ET. Claire & I will talk about:

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Leave it to John C. Havens, the About.com Podcasting Guide, to come up with these clever titles. He’s hosting a live podcast recording on Talkshoe to answer your questions about Podcamp.

John is one of the orgainzers behind Podcamp New York and he asked yours truly (I’m one of the organizers behind Podcamp Toronto) to join in on this interactive podcast, along with 2 more Podcamp organizers. They are:

• Bryan Person of Bryper.com, online media guru, podcast consultant, and co-organizer of Podcamp Boston (”original flavor”).
• Vic Podcaster of Hot From Silicon Valley, new media/startup expert and co-founder of Podcamp West.

If you’re interested in learning more about Podcamp and why you should attend, join us on this interactive podcast recording live on Wednesday December 13th @ 10pm ET. Here’s the details on how to join us.

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The Meshcasts (Rob’s term) are up on the Mesh blog. Thanks to Uncle Seth for that wonderful song called To Be An Angel that I used in both the intro and outro.

I was having a devil of a time trying to find something that could capture the energy of Mesh and then I stumbled upon that song.

As I perused a few blogs that made mention of the Meshcasts, I couldn’t help but notice a miscegenation of the word Mesh with other Web 2.0 terms. Meshcast is just one, so let’s have fun with this.

Here are a few of mine:

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Borrowed the title of this post from Rob, who borrowed it from Leo. The Mesh mini-podcasts are coming. Seven in total, all under 10-mins. Not sure when they’ll be posted, but I’ll link to them once I see them on the Mesh blog.

Unfortunately, I was using an omnidirectional mic which picked up everything. Silly me, I should’ve taken my condenser mic instead. Because of this, there was little I could do in post-production to remove the background chatter and music.

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I heard through the grape vine about 3-months ago that DigitalEve Toronto, the rebranded Webgrrls founded by a few Canadian women about 5-years ago to encourage women to pursue careers in technology, was going down the tube.

Wired Woman seems to be going strong with 2 chapters (although they had about 3 or 4 chapters about 2-years ago).
Well, rumour no more. I just visited the DigitalEve Toronto website and they have a final message from the board of directors. The final word?

It has been decided by a unanimous vote by the board members to officially close the Toronto Chapter due to lack of interest and income.

Jeepers, Batman! Although frankly, it comes as no surprise that Digital Eve Toronto has closed up shop. In my opinion, women’s technology associations are no longer relevant for many reasons.
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I’m a little late with this, but I wanted to share that the boys are at it again. Mark, Mathew, Stuart, Mike & Rob have decided to organize Mesh in 2007.

If you want to meet the guys behind Mesh, they’re having an informal meetup in Toronto on November 15th. I’ll be attending and would love to meet some of you.

Plus, I’ll have my mobile recording gear in tow to do some interviews with those who attend. I mean, Mark asked if I would and of course, I couldn’t refuse. We’re going to turn the recordings into podcasts and feature them (and you) on the Mesh blog. Cool, huh?

I’ll be asking you both intelligent and silly questions. Nothing embarassing, I promise. Just be yourself because someone else is already taken (Mitch, I just love this quote you came up with).

So, if you’re looking for good eats, great company and your 15 MB of fame (thanks for coming up with that one, Michael), come on out and let’s pre-Mesh in the city.

If you plan to attend, leave your comments so I can keep my eye out for you.

Technorati: mesh2007, mark evans, mathew ingram, stuart macdonald, rob hyndman, mitch joel, michael seaton, podcasting, web 2.0, mike mcderment

I stumbled upon this great blog post on how to blog a conference. One thing that stuck out are the tips the author provided on how to podcast a session.

Somehow, writing about a session and recording it to turn into a podcast are treated separately. Most conference organizer would frown upon attendees recording each session then publishing it as a podcast for all the world to listen.

The reason? Conference organizers typically get the speakers to sign a release form to get their permission to record (and then sell) the recording of their session.

As a podcaster, you don’t have this permission from the speaker. So, to avoid any legal hiccups, podcasters should focus on getting the behind the scenes stories.
Forget about recording the sessions. Instead:

• Interview speakers after their sessions (Josh suggested this).
• Interview attendees and ask for their opinions about the conference.
• Interview exhibitors and find out what’s so interesting about the product or service they’re showcasing.
• And then, interview someone who just visited a booth and get their honest opinion about the product or service.
• Attend an after party and capture the energy, noise and voices.

All these can become great podcasts that don’t infringe on the agreements conference organizers made with the speakers, plus you get to provide content from a unique angle that compliments all your blog posts while reporting from a conference or expo.