Whitney Hoffman and I spoke Sunday evening about the debate over the fee for the upcoming PodCamp Boston. It seems that many people are quite upset about the fee and have used the argument that communities shouldn’t charge its members to participate in events. That’s when we started to talk about physical communities and financial support they request. Immediately, several communities came to mind including my own neighbourhood which asks households to contribute $5 to sustain the activities group (the fee is requested whether you participate in neighbourhood activities or not).
Perhaps the most significant — and oldest — community to expect members to contribute is the church. Here’s an organization that does a collection from its congregation each week. To be fair, synagogues have fundraising drives to sustain community activities. It’s worth noting that these are communities that people are born into, not specifically adopted the way the social media community is. Many would argue that these are communities that will play the guilt card.
Bob Goyetche said this past fall that social media is a hobby and in order to participate you need some money to buy at least the most basic of technology making us a community of disposable incomes of some degree or another. Whitney supports this statement by offering demographic data that shows an overwhelming majority of PodCamp (that’s free PodCamp) attendees are professionals in their 30′s. An increasing number travel great distances, stay in hotels and eat out to attend the events.
Smaller PodCamps like PodCamp Ottawa can be organized in a few days and run at absolutely no charge. And because they are locally focused, it allows people in a geographic region to connect and form their own community without having to travel and stay in hotels.
PodCamp is a proven model. An event fee equivalent to a few Starbucks coffees won’t change the content or delivery. It will sustain it.
I just checked out the fee for Pod Camp Boston, and It’s $50. Who would complain about that!? Most conferences that I attend are anywhere from $500 – $1600. Asking those who participate / attend these events to shell out $50 is hardly over-reaching.
When I attend future Pod Camps I hope the focus of the discussion will be about how to expand and improve upon the field of Podcasting; rather than complaining about having to pay a tiny fee to exchange ideas, network, and ultimately innovate.
Comment by Jeff Parks — May 1, 2008 @ 6:32 am
It’s very strange how this argument has been twisted around.
The fee for Podcamp Boston was NOT (to the best of my understanding) added because the event needs money to sustain itself. I’m pretty sure the money to keep the event going was and still could be got from sponsorships, and that could continue to be the case.
Yes, $50 is a pittance to pay for the value of something like Podcamp. But I think if you ask Chris Brogan or Chris Penn, they’d admit they don’t actually NEED people to contribute the money to keep the event going.
The REAL reason (again, to the best of my understanding) for adding the fee was to offset the fact that, for Podcamp Boston, so many people signed up but didn’t show up.
MY objection, at any rate, was that charging a fee might change the feel of the event from it being something that is put on BY the attendees but rather being something that is put on FOR the attendees.
So far, I haven’t heard anyone put forward any strategies to help make sure the event retains its community nature, other than to say “we hope it won’t change things.”
Comment by Jay Moonah — May 1, 2008 @ 8:40 am
You bring up an interesting point, Jay. There has been an evolution in the discussion of the fee from managing commitment to helping fund the conference. Regardless of the original intent, both can be seen as true. More importantly, we frequently need to manage to perception, not reality.
I still don’t see how a fee should be seen as changing the spirit of PodCamp ‘being by’ to ‘being for’ the community. Indeed, one could argue that a fee should make people feel more invested in participating. Again, we could be dealing with perception here.
I have a lot of faith that the organizing team has the necessary experience in building and including the community to preserve that feel even with a fee – maybe moreso because of it.
No matter, I wish the naysayers would see the positive, or at least organize their own event in their own way.
Comment by Mark — May 1, 2008 @ 9:05 am
It’s funny you put it as “evolution in discussion” rather than “spin”, which is what it feels more like to me — the spin being that people who are opposed to the fee are too cheap to pony up the $50.
I have a lot of faith in the organizing committee too, but I do see the fee as a knee-jerk reaction to perceived problems that happened in Boston last year. Frankly I think the problem was that the expectations for that event were set WAY too high. Why was there even an attempt made to grow the event 500ish% in one year? That’s what I never understood.
Comment by Jay Moonah — May 1, 2008 @ 9:42 am
I was trying to be positive. I actually agree with you that the argument has been spun.
I think PodCamp isn’t meant to be a massive event. In fact, I believe that the effectiveness of a good PodCamp is inversely proportional to its size. That is to say, the smaller the event, the more impact it has on the individuals and the community as a whole.
Comment by Mark — May 1, 2008 @ 9:53 am
Yeah, Mark you and I have talked about this a bit before. I think there’s a balance, and I think self-organizing events like Podcamps find their natural right size organically. What you did for Podcamp Ottawa was very cool because you used natural limitations of time and the nature of the event to limit the attendance organically — I thought that was extremely creative and a great approach.
Some people asked me if I was upset by the fact that we had approximately 55-60% attendance vs. registration at Podcamp Toronto. I honestly wasn’t — the only thing I was a bit concerned about was that I think a fair amount of food got thrown out on the second day (BTW the leftover sandwiches on day one went to a men’s shelter who were more than happy to have them.) Otherwise, I think the Toronto event was the size it was meant to be. The people who came were there because they WANTED to be there, not ‘cus they were worried about wasting their $50.
And while I’m all for being positive, I’m adamantly against rah-rah-ism and groupthink. The community is never going to get anywhere if everyone just says “everything is wonderful” every time they see something they don’t agree with just ‘cus they’re worried they might be labeled as negative.
To me a community that can’t withstand a bit a of dissent isn’t a very healthy one, and I believe our community is quite healthy so I’m going to keep dissenting when I see a need!:-)
Comment by Jay Moonah — May 1, 2008 @ 10:13 am
Summing up it’s about the quality of the conversation, not the quantity of people that attend the events.
Attending the Information Architecture Summit in Miami a couple of weeks back, the closing Key note Andrew Hinton suggested that content isn’t king – conversation is king!
Podcasting models that point beautifully, and like at every conference the most interesting aspect for myself, are the conversations that happen after ideas are shared by presenters.
Focus on the medium and the strengths of individuals and podcasting can bring to the table – and the rest will naturally play out over time.
Comment by Jeff Parks — May 1, 2008 @ 10:55 am
You guys are all bringing up really good points, and I think these discussions are all just part of the natural evolution of the un-conference format.
There aren’t very many community organizations that don’t charge some sort of fee to their members, whether to offset operating costs or to ensure an ongoing commitment from its members.
For example, I have spent many years participating and sitting on organizing committees in community choirs. These types of groups always charge a nominal fee to members. A lot of the groups I was involved with held fundraising drives and acquired sponsorship to offset actual operating expenses. The membership fees are in place because people are more inclined to make a long term commitment to participation if they are coughing up some dough.
Jeff’s last comment about focusing on the medium and the community itself hits the nail on the head. After all, isn’t the conversation the most important thing?
Comment by Sue Murphy — May 2, 2008 @ 1:21 pm
You bring up an interesting point, Jay. There has been an evolution in the discussion of the fee from managing commitment to helping fund the conference. Regardless of the original intent, both can be seen as true. More importantly, we frequently need to manage to perception, not reality.
I still don't see how a fee should be seen as changing the spirit of PodCamp 'being by' to 'being for' the community. Indeed, one could argue that a fee should make people feel more invested in participating. Again, we could be dealing with perception here.
I have a lot of faith that the organizing team has the necessary experience in building and including the community to preserve that feel even with a fee – maybe moreso because of it.
No matter, I wish the naysayers would see the positive, or at least organize their own event in their own way.
Comment by Mark — December 31, 2009 @ 3:04 am