ok, ok, so it has been a week now. The PodCamp event itself is over, the PodCamp T-Shirts may or may not have run through the laundry, the PodCamp Pittsburgh pens have found their way into general circulation, and all attendees have left Neverland and returned back to their real lives.
First, what is PodCamp? Well, the name doesn’t do it justice. It no longer has very much to do with PodCasting and has very little to do with Tents and camping.
PodCamp is a FREE, laid back, fun, friendly, Social Media and everything Internet based. PodCamps happen all over the World, of course I’m partial to the PodCamp conference we hold here in Pittsburgh – namely – PodCamp Pittsburgh.
No, it’s not a bunch of bespectacled, pocket-protector wearing nerds. Anything but. It’s a group of friendly people who are more than happy to share their expertise with those who want to learn.
We have a very, very talented group.
I was sure to clear my schedule for the entire weekend (Friday night through Sunday afternoon) so that I could get in as much of the conference as possible.
Essentially, it was great!
The organizing crew did a great job putting it all together. Kudos to Missy Sorg, Norm Huelsman and their crew.
PodCamp Pittsburgh 6 was different to prior PodCamps in that we had a location change this year. Point Park was kind enough to offer a Downtown Pittsburgh venue for the conference.
Though we may have experienced some growing pains with the location change, and though attendee numbers may have been down slightly, I’d say that participation was definitely up. There was a very active group of attendees with lots of great feedback – which is what its all about.
While it’s great to be a volunteer and speaker at PodCamp you might not get to attend as many of the sessions as you would like to. Luckily here in Pittsburgh we do our best to make the sessions available in video format online after the event.
One of the great things I’ve found about PodCamp is that we buck the stereotype of basement-dwelling, pale skinned “tech people” and we make the effort to put the “Social” into “Social Media” with the Friday Night meet and greet, food throughout the weekend and a Saturday night… mixer 
I could list all of the sessions, of you could just check out the PodCamp Pittsburgh web site. Suffice to say, there was a variety of sessions of an array of topics and always people at hand to show you something that wasn’t on the schedule.
Personally, I lead an open discussion on Search Engine Optimization and my distain for “Search Engine Optimists” as well as sitting on panels for Trolling and Cyberbullying/Online Harassment.
What now though? The weekend is over, we’re all going back to doing what we do. What do we do with what we learned/taught?
Norm put three words up in a post on his site. Learn. Interact. Apply.
We need to apply our skills. We need to put our money where out mouths are (making that a group term) and get out there and do it.
Justin Kownacki posted some invaluable thoughts post-PodCamp too on his site.
Not sure how to apply what you need to or where to apply it? ASK. If anything came out of the weekend it should be that there are people out there who are more than willing to help you where you need it.
Heck, I’ve already made friends, gained clients and had meetings as a direct result of PodCamp… and I have more following up to do.
Oh, also – not only is PodCamp Pittsburgh all about online good – we’re about Social Good too (#SocialGood). It was great to see all of the leftover meals, drinks etc (quite a substantial amount) being hauled across the street from Point Park University to Wood Street Commons to help out those who need it.
Where can you find out more about PodCamp? Check out http://podcamp.pbworks.com
Where can I find out about PodCamp Pittsburgh? Check out http://www.PodCampPittsburgh.com
Want to see what fun was had at Podcamp Pittsburgh throughout the years? Check out the Flickr group.
