Its been a couple of weeks since Podcamp Toronto was held Feb 20 & 21 at the Rogers Communciation Centre at Ryerson University. Well over 900 people arrived on Saturday morning to choose from 42 sessions. If you’ve never been to a Podcamp, it’s a bit different from your typical expensive industry conference. Podcamp is an “unconference” – it’s organized and run by a dedicated group of volunteers. The sessions are crowdsourced, anyone who wants to lead a session can – breakout sessions were still being added throughout the two days. The Law of Two Feet rules at Podcamp, if you are not getting something from the session you are in, you are encouraged to leave and find another session that you are interested in.
I purposely sought out sessions I wouldn’t normally attend, including these:
- A Brief Discussion on Dante’s “Inferno” - given by Hamilton high school teacher and podcaster/blogger Anthony Marco
- Integration, Integration, Integration: Communications in the New Social Media Ecosystem - led by Dave Fleet of Toronto PR firm Thornley-Fallis.
- Get Over Yourselves – by Joel Kelly, Digital Strategist with Halifax agency Colour
- Death to Pie Charts! presented by Zoe Siskos, Manager, Measurement Science at Syncapse
- Death and Digital Legacy in Social Media by Adele McAlear of Montreal’s McAlear Marketing
- Twitter and Dating: tips for dating 140 characters or less by Jeremy Wright of Thornley-Fallis / 76 Design and Michelle Smich of Softcom
Videos and presentation decks from most of the sessions in Toronto are available here.
One of the most valuable part of Podcamp tends to happen in the hallways between sessions or at hastily arranged lunch meetups. People who have previously only known each other online finally get to meet each other and real life.
Click here or a full list of upcoming and past Podcamps from around the world.