2010.05.01

New Media group meetup May 2010

The Ottawa Podcast and New Media group will be gathering to reconnect at Irene’s Pub, May 5 at 8pm. It’s the first organized gathering since October 30… wait for it… 2008!

This is meant to be an informal gathering to re-energize the group, find out what everyone is up to and what challenges they face and build up momentum for the upcoming PAB2010 conference (June 18-20 at the NAC). It’s possible some media may come. CTV has expressed interest in doing a piece on the local scene and the conference.

Click here to learn more about the group, join the group and RSVP for the meetup.

2008.10.27

Ottawa Podcast and New Media meetup, October 30

The Ottawa Podcast and New Media Meetup Group will kick off its 2008-2009 season at 7:00pm this Thursday, October 30, at the Clock Tower Brew Pub (575 Bank Street at Isabella).  The reservation is under Mark/Podcasters.

During this meeting, I’d like to create a list of podcast/new media challenges people are struggling with and things they’d like to learn more about. We’ll use that list to plan discussions/speakers for our meetups and feed ideas to conference organizers.

Please RSVP so we know how many people to expect.

Also, there will be an announcement made at this event.

2008.09.26

Funny story about the Portland Podcasting group

From left: Tom Parker, Tim Garrett, Luke Lefler

From left: Tom Parker, Tim Garrett, Luke Lefler

So, remember how I blogged, yesterday, about the 98-person waiting list for a podcast meetup group in Portland, Oregon?

Funny story.

I thought it was odd that everyone on the waiting list had joined on the same day, September 24, 2008; the day before I became aware of the list.  Odd?  Yes.  Though not odd enough for me to investigate further.

It turns out that there had been a Portland podcasting meetup group on meetup.com.  As I learned last night, it was run for a short time by some folks at a local college.  It had about 98 members.  The group sat dormant on meetup.com for some time, possibly as much as two years.  Actually, the Portland Podcasting blog site has been dormant since October 1, 2006 (something I was aware of and had also not questioned).

Apparently meetup.com shuts down groups for which the service fee has lapsed and then automatically orphans the group’s members to a waiting list.

Imagine the odds.  I become aware of a 98-person waiting list for a podcasting group in Portland the day after the group of which they were all members shuts down.  Even more funny is imagining the people on that list getting a notice one day that their group has folded and then the next that some crazy Canadian has swooped in and is going to bring them all together.  I love how embarrassing that is for me.

All stories have a happy endind, though.  I had a great time at the Lucky Labrador brew pub last night with Tim Garrett, Tom Parker and Luke Lefler.  Besides discussing our own projects which include Tom’s video podcast about motorcycle racing (motobrief.tv), Luke’s podcasts of open mics and for a local art gallery (couldn’t find links) and Tim’s work at real, I learned a lot about video equipment and video editing.

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