Whitney Hoffman has published a few blog posts this week relating to the demands put upon conference organizers by last-minute registrations (see Your Failure to Plan Ahead is Not My Emergency, Law of Supply and Demand and What Happened to the Social Contract?).  I’d like to add another component to the discussion: The rule of no exceptions.

This is a hard rule to implement and enforce, particularly since many of us in the social media community know each other very well and in many cases we’re close friends.  It’s hard to say no to your friends.  When it comes to conference planning and public deadlines, you have to. 

I’ll use Podcasters Across Borders as an example since, for some reason, I know it well.

For the second year in a row, we have announced the dates of the next conference nearly a full year in advance (July June 19-21, 2009 in Kingston, Ontario — Canada — in case you hadn’t yet heard).  Last year, we starting making announcements about early registration (with a lower registration rate) a little more than one month in advance.  We made a formal announcement a few weeks in advance, and made regular updates online leading up to and during early registration.  Some people told us that they would be registering on the second last or last day of early registration.  The day following the close of early registration we received several emails requesting that we make an exception in each specific case.

Planning events and conferences for the community is a difficult task.  Registering for an event is an endorsement of the quality of the event and the investment of the organizers.  If an event is worth attending/endorsing, it’s worth doing so within the parameters of the event.

Congratulations to the PodCamp Boston 3 team.  I’m sorry I couldn’t be there this time.

The number of conferences with a social media slant has been increasing over the last few years. I have attended a few of them and have found each to have their own unique style of promoting knowledge, community and collaboration. I decided that I’d take a few moments to share my experiences and offer my thoughts on three social media conferences.

PODCAMP

Even within the PodCamp unconference movement, each event has its own style. PodCamp Boston 1 and 2 were strong in their efforts to promote community and the media of podcasting. PodCamp Toronto 07 and 08 catered very well to the marketing interest and had strong focus on podcast promotion and technology. PodCamp Philly had a decided education and community flair. PodCamp Ottawa was truly unplugged. Of course, these conferences had a lot of breadth of coverage in many domain areas and became the catalyst of conversation that stretches beyond what I mention here. What PodCamps have in wide-angle scope, they lack in specific depth of focus. Being a free event that is community organized offers the ability for the community to decide what it wants to share and that gives the movement a lot to grow on.

MESH

This event attracts a lot of key players from pop-culture, marketing, communications and social media. Mesh was packed from end-to-end with innovators and thought leaders who were excellent at delivering on the promise of the Mesh motto, “connect, share, inspire”. The panel discussions and keynote format (in which there was no real speech, but a discussion between a guest and co-organizer) offered the audience some amazing insight into some incredible projects and people. However, I felt that because there were so many panels and keynotes, there was little opportunity for many of the speakers to dig deep into their subjects and propel innovation beyond its current state. Those sessions where more a discussion of the past and present and offered little to push the envelope of innovation. For me, the best sessions at Mesh were those delivered by an individual or team that shared details of a specific project or idea. They made me want to get up and do more.

PODCASTERS ACROSS BORDERS

What started out as a grassroots event aimed at helping the community advance together in a meetup-meets-conference format has become something more credible and formal. Being a co-organizer, I am both proud and critical of our accomplishments to date. Our first two years were vastly different from each other and that has allowed us to examine the stuff that works (lots of engagement with the community) and the stuff that doesn’t (too much programming, insufficient breaks) and find a way to make the best of our event meet the stuff I love most about other events to hit one out of the park with PAB2008. My lofty vision is that PAB establishes itself as the TED of social media — a conference that changes the way people think in twenty minute segments and then offers a forum to explore those ideas as a group. I believe that this year’s program represents experience and a maturing of the conference and community. I’m looking forward to this year’s conference which we can almost start counting down to in hours.

PARTING THOUGHT

People often talk about the best part of conferences being the networking and socializing. In fact, I often hear of people attending one conference in particular (name withheld) just to socialize and have given up attending the sessions because, for them, the sessions lack substance. I believe that conferences should always excel at providing worthwhile networking opportunities, but never at the expense of offering high quality sessions and high quality speakers.

The program for Podcasters Across Borders 2008 will be announced in two days.  It’s been an exciting and difficult process to go through this time since we have received so many amazing submissions — more than we have available speaking slots.  Bob and I never prepared ourselves for that possibility and I’ve been struggling with it over the last twenty-four hours as we’ve sent notices to those who submitted proposals to let them know if they are part of the program this year, or not.

Following last year’s programs, and during the fall when attending a number of new media conferences, I was frequently asked how we make PAB a reality and what is our model for success.  I had never really considered any of that.  Since I’m a visual person, I sat down with a pencil and paper and scratched down some of my thoughts and tried to make a diagram that represents the elements that go into the event that I feel make it what it is.  The difficult part for me was to find a way to illustrate the co-dependency of every element.

While the event couldn’t happen without speakers, social activities, the community and money, I believe that the key components to the PAB model are passion and relationships.

PASSION

PAB isn’t just about three days of connecting with other people.  Planning the event consumes months of time and commitment from the organizers and presenters.  You can’t buy that kind of energy; it comes from individual passion that grows exponentially through collaboration.

Indeed Bob and I feed off of each other’s passion for the event and the community.  And while we may take a lot of credit for the event, it is the ideas, criticism, focus and support of Andrea and Cat that make our roles as prominent as they are.  So, it’s not just about two people.  It’s also about the people who pitch in ideas, submit proposals, sponsor the event and offer to help out.  Everyone is doing what they do because of their passion. Passion is infectious.  It’s a virus.  It’s the magic ingredient.

RELATIONSHIPS

Just as the there is a foundation built on passion, the success of PAB depends heavily on relationships.  We take every interaction seriously.  We work hard to ensure that everyone’s voice is heard, included and respected.  This becomes an evolving challenge with an event that is growing in scope and reach.  And because we are human we sometimes make mistakes.  We always learn from them and we always work hard to address any concerns.  That’s not easy to do and it’s why I find it hard to thank people for their submissions and offer them the opportunity to submit next year.

PAB2008 PROGRAM

While I can’t share specifics about this year’s program, yet, I will say that the event feels real now that we have lined up our speakers.  More importantly, it’s exciting to have so many fresh faces as part of the event.

Chris Sherry (creator the the Kaflooey podcast) dredged up this gem of Bob Goyetche and me following Podcasters Across Borders 2007. According to Chris, Photoshop was not involved.

Original photo by Nico.

Early-bird registration for the 2008 edition of Podcasters Across Borders is now open.

From Sunday, January 27 through Saturday, February 2, you can register to attend PAB2008 for the low rate of CDN$90/person.  This offer is available for one week only (or until the event reaches capacity).   Space permitting, regular registration will begin on March 15 at a rate of CDN$125/person.

Notwithstanding the terrible word that we’ve been stuck with since 2004, podcasting was on shaky ground long before Michael Geohegan’s now famous speech delivered at the Podcast and New Media Expo a few weeks ago (see his blog post, No More Podcast in the New Media Expo).

It’s a discussion that has been going on for a long time in many circles. Indeed, many of us debated the health of the podcast movement merits of the term ‘podcast’ at Podcamp Boston. Following this year’s edition of Podcasters Across Borders , Bob Goyetche and I examined the speaking sessions and we discussed the title of the conference when we realized that there was very little podcast-specific material in the program.

Podcasting is simply one technology that is part of what we call new media. Of course, by its very definition, new media will always involve something new, so podcasting — like many other technologies — was doomed to begin with. I’ve always felt, rightly or wrongly, that the word podcast had to be considered in the whole of new media and accepted as a term like ‘disc jockey’ or ‘host’– not particularly descriptive, but a permanent label nonetheless.

Reinventing ourselves on a regular basis is a dangerous proposition. While it makes for great press, it will further confuse an already suspicious audience and the technology and marketing firms won’t be able to keep up with the latest and greatest terminology. These are the reasons why, even though we considered a change, Bob and I have decided to leave the PAB name intact and, for the purpose of the conference, consider the term podcasting to represent the whole of new media.

UPDATE: I re-read this post and realized that it sounds like I am pro-podcasting and con-new media. To clarify, I agree with the trend towards calling things new media - and have for many months referred to my work as new media first and podcasting second. I also feel that we need to agree on, and stick with, one label. It will do a great disservice to everyone, creators and consumers alike, if we constantly change the terminology.

The Canadian Podcasting Legal Guide was unveiled by Andy Kaplan-Myrth and Kathi Simmons at Podcasters Across Borders and is now available for download (in html and pdf) from the Creative Commons Canada site.

The presentation by Andy and Kathi will be available for download on the Canadian Podcast Buffet in the next two weeks.

It seems almost impossible that the original Podcasters Across Borders conference could be outdone. With 16 days to go before the second edition of the conference (PAB2007), I realize that the bar has been raised even higher than we thought possible.

As reported on the PAB site, the event is approaching a capacity crowd of 160 participants. Here are some amazing facts about this year’s event… so far!

• 19 sessions (including a workshop) over 3 days
• 2 concerts in 2 nights, 3 bands in all
• 1 boat cruise
• 2 continental breakfasts (Saturday and Sunday)
• 1 buffet lunch (Saturday) with vegetarian and vegan dishes
• 1 free t-shirt for each registrant
• 1 free Freddy Litwiniuk CD for each registrant
• 1 lounge with couches for hanging out
• 1 participant-managed breakout room
• Crazy low registration fee… $100 Canadian per person!!!

Register now using Paypal so that you don’t miss out!

I’m honoured to be the guest of Joe Thornley’s first podcast on the ProPR blog site (Mark Blevis previews this year’s Podcasters Across Borders). Joe and I met to celebrate the Thornley Fallis sponsorship of Podcasters Across Borders 2007 a few weeks ago and he decided to put his new portable recorder to the test.

When Bob Goyetche and I first started working on Podcasters Across Borders 2006, there were a lot of reasons to be concerned — mostly relating to financial commitments and community interest. Okay, concerns may not be the right word. Let’s say Stress, with a capital ‘S’.

We took a big gamble, committing personal funds to secure conference facilities and invested a lot of time to plan and promote the event, and process registrations. It was a great learning experience. In fact, maybe I should blog some of my lessons-learned about that process sometime.

A turning point in the process, for me, was the day we received our very first paid registrations. I knew that no matter what happened, PAB2006 was going to be great. In my view, it was already a success because others believed in the event and its organizers enough to commit their own funds and holiday time to participate. Karen and Ross made my day and became silent motivators when things seemed rough. They will always be the first ever paid registrants for PAB.

Things are a bit different this year. PAB is an established event with a large following. A lot of people have been emailing Bob and me for months asking for registration information — many have also offered help. That doesn’t change the fact that there were concerns going in to the big registration announcement. It’s amazing how that first paid registration can evaporate all of those concerns. We have Bill Deys to thank for kicking off the demonstration of trust in us this year.

Registrations are coming in faster than we expected. This is real!

See you in June.