2009.01.20
The first meetup of Canadian podcasters, ever? [30:38m]:
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The first meetup of podcasters in Ottawa took place at the Chateau Laurier Hotel on May 26, 2005. It was organized by Tod Maffin. He was traveling across the country on a speaking tour and organized informal gatherings of Canadian podcasters along the way.
I’d largely forgotten about this meeting until a recent series of conversations with UBC student Tracy Fuller who’s doing her thesis on the history of podcasting in Canada. I was surprised to find three photographs and nearly ninety-minutes of audio on a hard drive I labeled “Archive”.
It turns out the May 26, 2005 gathering of Tod, Maurizio Ortolani and myself might hold historical significance. In an email exchange last week, Tod wrote “I’m almost certain this would have been the first meetup of Canadian podcasters ever”.
This episode of my Sound Connections podcast features excerpts of the meetup including discussion about the soundseeing tour of my appearance on All in a Day (CBC Ottawa drive-time radio show), some of the podcasts and listening habits of the time, our own podcasting activities, the difference between radio and podcasting, technology and other geekiness, magic moments in podcasting and scoring permission to play some great independent music. You also get to hear the lounge’s player piano, sometimes too well.
The following podcasts (sorted alphabetically) are mentioned:
Listen to audio of the June 9, 2005 podcast meetup that brought together podcasters from Montreal and Ottawa for the first time. See a photo of that meetup.
2008.10.27
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.
2008.08.07
There’s a wave of social media events and conferences coming up that I’ll be attending and I encourage you to attend, as well.
Niagara on the Lake Podcasting and Social Media Meetup (tag: notl2008) is a hybrid meetup and conference taking place August 16 (yes, next week!) at the Prince of Whales Hotel in Niagara on the Lake. The event is being spearheaded by John Meadows and Keith Burtis, both of whom hope that this is the event that crosses the line from being a geeks-only event to one that includes the Social Media Widows and Orphans. While I’ve heard that one is in the works, a schedule of family-focused activites has not yet been published. The speaker schedule is available on the site as is a great promo by StevieZ.
The second PodCamp Philly (tag: podcampphilly) is happening September 6 and 7 at Temple University in Philadelphia. Lead organizer, Whitney Hoffman, has a history of organizing events that foster both an amazing sense of community and an environment that gets people thinking and talking about the medium and related opportunities. Last year’s conference had a great educational program and this year’s appears to be building on that success. SearchCamp is new for the 2008 edition of PodCamp Philly. SearchCamp is a series of sessions designed for people interested in seach engine marketing.
If PodCamp Montreal (tag: podcampmtl) isn’t the first ever officially bilingual PodCamp, it’s certainly one of the very few. That’s right, PodCamp makes its first appearance in La Belle Province September 20 and 21 at the University of Montreal’s Design Pavillion (Pavillion de Design de l’UQAM). The posts on the PodCamp Montreal website are all bilingual (French first, then English) and there will be separate tracks for French and English sessions at the event. Despite the segregation of the sessions by language, I hope that there’s a good amount of mingling between languages and cultures; both have a lot to learn from each other. If the organizing committee is any indication, this is going to be an incredible event.
I’m also considering going to Third Coast for the first time, this year. I’ve heard that it’s a religious experience for producer-geeks like me.
