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.

PodCamp Philly took place on the anniversary of the original PodCamp (PodCamp Boston) and it was a fantastic tribute to the movement and its founders.

The event was first class. Whitney Hoffman and her team put on an amazing conference at a great venue, with committed sponsors, a herd of new campers and a fantastic anniversary celebration. About the only thing that was missing for me was my Canadian compatriots that were with me in Boston last year (see CC Chapman’s photo of my Tribute to Absent Original Canadian Podcampers and Chris Brogan sticker at the right of this post).

Here are my five highlights from the weekend (in no particular order):

NEWCOMERS

I’ve been to six podcast-related conferences and countless meetups. This is the first such event I attended that had more newly-minted and soon-to-be podcasters than veterans. I had suspected as much when I looked at the list of registrants and was convinced when CC Chapman opened a session by asking how many people in the room did not create a podcast — about 80% of the hands in the room went up.

CONNECTIONS

I always make a point of getting to know as many new people as possible and socialize out of my normal circles at podcast gatherings. Philly offered ample opportunities to meet new people because there were so many unfamiliar (to me) names and faces there. It was great to connect with so many genuine people.

PODCAMP TRIBUTE

Whitney rallied the community to create a tribute to the two Chrises (Chris Brogan and Chris Penn), and Larry Lawfer brought the vision to life in a series of great videos. One of the videos was played during the opening ceremonies on Saturday morning. I wonder if Chris and Chris realize what they have achieved and how many people they have affected.

ROCKY RUN FOR CHOP

While only a dedicated few of us actually made the bold move of self-humiliation when we recreated the famous scene from Rocky in which Sylvester Stallone ran up the steps of the Museum of Art and performed a victory dance, many people contributed to this fundraiser for the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The last I heard, we had raised nearly $300.

WHITNEY HOFFMAN AND HER FAMILY

Besides leading a great organizing team, Whitney was an incredible host. She was an incredible host at the conference and she and her family were incredible hosts to me, CC and Lynette who were guests of their home. Organizing conferences takes a lot of time, energy and juggling of life priorities including families. Whitney was able to do all of this, her family supported her throughout and then displaced themselves for the comfort of others in the process. You guys deserve a standing ovation.

Linda Mills is an amazing person. She’s fun, supportive and (perhaps most significantly) persuasive in the best sense of the word. We had a great time hanging out at PodCamp Philly. Among our antics was a Sunday morning excursion on the Drexel University campus and nearby streets to accost innocent people and find out if they have ever heard of or listened to podcasts.

On Saturday afternoon, Linda asked if I would write an article about Just One More Book for Podcast User Magazine. We talked more about it in the evening and I became increasingly interested in the idea. Forty-five minutes later I found myself committing to being a monthly columnist. And, do you know what? It felt good. It felt good because that’s the kind of person Linda is. Like the podcasting situations Linda and I were discussing, it was a defining moment — a phrase which may become the title of the column.

For my first submission, I am working on an article about making the decision to get started as a podcast producer. I’ll be exploring things like picking a subject that the creator is passionate about, developing a format and strategy, and making it all happen.

I am looking for some examples to cite in my article. If you are a non-music, non-techy podcaster and have an interesting story to tell about the genesis of your podcast, please contact me ASAP. My deadline is September 15.

For the first time ever, I arrived at an airport to a car service holding my name on a card — a great greeting from CC Chapman and Whitney Hoffman.

We sat down in an airport restaurant and caught up for a while, waiting for some other flights to come in. That’s when I found out that CC has left Crayon and will make the move to freelancing.

Forty minutes later, Chris Penn and Steve Garfield arrived. With that, PodCamp Philly kicked off in the middle of the airport. The first session took place in Whitney’s van as CC highlighted the features of his new Zoom H2 and Steve introduced me to the iPhone. Then Chris talked TubeTV and continued at Whitney’s house with a demonstration of Blue Sky Factory.

As it turns out, Chris Brogan won’t be here this weekend. I think there’s an agreement among us that we will photoshop him into some pictures and blog about his crazy antics.

Click here to see PodCamp Philly photos on Flickr.

Here are the titles, summaries, times and rooms of the presentations I will be a part of at PodCamp Philly. Note that times and rooms may change.

Editing Techniques and Decisions - (On special request of Whitney Hoffman) Practical examples and live demonstrations of five audio editing techniques and discussions on how to apply them. [Saturday September 8, 11:00am in Korman A]

High Impact New Media (with C. C. Chapman and Linda Mills) - Mistakes to avoid and ideas to consider when incorporating new media as part of a PR and marketing strategy for businesses, organizations, events, music and even personal projects. [Saturday September 8, 2:00pm in Pearlstein 102]

Greater Than the Sum of its Parts - Using examples of three elements that help to develop communities, I will present an understanding of Return on Influence that can be applied in both grassroots and business settings. [Sunday September 9, 10:00am in Korman B]

People: The magic ingredient of all podcasts (with Andy Bilodeau) - If it’s not fun, it’s really not worth doing - whether as a hobby or for financial gain. In this interactive session we’ll talk about proven ways to have fun podcasting, achieve rewarding results and avoid burnout - drawing on the experience of newcomers, podcasting veterans of over two-and-a-half years, and podcast consultants/producers. [Sunday September 9, 1:00pm in Korman B]

PodCamp Philly is taking place this weekend. It coincides with the first anniversary of the inaugural PodCamp event, PodCamp Boston.

Besides the usual suspects, there are a lot of names on the registration page that I have never seen before. That registration page is now 300 strong.

I was originally planning to do two presentations; one on Return on Influence and another about people being the magic ingredient (co-presenting with Andy Bilodeau). During the summer I was asked to reprise my PodCamp Toronto presentation on Editing Techniques, and add another on Podcasting ideas and mistakes. So, I’ll be pretty busy this weekend.

If you have any questions relating to my presentation topics, please drop a comment on this post and I will try to factor them in to my sessions.