Being Buff: Marketing the social economy

I write a lot about rabble.ca because they are trailblazers when it comes to social media and non-profits in Canada. One of the main reasons for this is that change is rabble’s mandate – and they walk the talk. For example, they recently switched their website over to the open source Drupal platform that allows them to easily mashup issue pages.

Yesterday, I got a Tweet (a short message via the super popular microblogging app, Twitter) from rabble publisher Kim Elliott  about a new podcast they just launched on the Rabble Podcast Network (RPN) called Who are you? An Exploration of Identity at the Edge of Tech (full disclosure: Kim is a friend of mine). The podcast is the work of the 2008 online journalism class at the University of Western Ontario and looks at how technology changes our identity and our idea of identity. Rabble.ca super tech guru, Wayne MacPhail, taught the class and presented about it at Podcamp Toronto in February.

Now, rabble isn’t perfect – and that’s what exploring is all about – getting out there and trying new thing that sometimes fail or don’t work perfectly. As an example, I just tried to subscribe to the new podcast using iTunes and can’t find it. Nothing comes up when I search and I couldn’t find an iTunes link on rabble.

Kim Elliott, Wayne MacPhail – I know you’re listening. What’s up? (Oh, and keep up the great work!) 

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Being Buff, Episode #31 Mobile Social Media at Podcamp Toronto 2009

(Note: To play the audio: after you click the link above, click the POD button on the page that pops up, as shown below.)

Every podcamp I attend just makes me, well, love podcamps more and more and the 2009 edition of Podcamp Toronto was no exception.

I attended Podcamp T.O. (Twitter: #pcto09) 2009 this past weekend at Ryerson University in downtown Toronto and again had an amazing networking/learning experience – for free. Some of the highlights were meeting Sarah Prevette who had organized TwestivalTO that raised $10,000 to help build wells in developing countries. Sarah is also behind RedWire – a start up (and up start) social network for entrepreneurs, currently in beta release. I met people exploring faith and social media and journalism education and social media. From rabble’s Wayne MacPhail, I learned about the amazing  Flip video camera pictured below that makes putting video on the web as easy as pushing a big red button.

Bill Deys taught me about CastRoller, perhaps the YouTube of audio, and the Eye-Fi card that makes your digital camera wireless and lets you upload photos directly to the web. John Piercy taught me about the iPhone application, TwitterFon, that seamlessly lets you glide between Tweeting, browsing and Flickring…

And, in classic podcamp fashion, I organized a session on mobile social media because there wasn’t one. And I did an experiment that went off beautifully. I used my Zoom H2 hand held digital recorder as a talking stick and had folks pass it around to those wanting to speak. Most people respected the talking stick principle and the resulting audio quality is great. Enjoy the conversation and thanks to all the organizers below for another great podcamp!

Connie Crosby

Dave Fleet

Eden Spodek

Jay Moonah

Rob Lee

Sean McGaughey

Tommy Vallier

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:08 — 27.6MB)

Posted in #pcto09, Podcamp, Podcast | 7 Comments »

Podcamps never cease to amaze me. They are amazing conferences full of inspiring speakers and they’re free. In addition to that, if there’s a topic that’s not covered, you can create your own session. Depending on what it is, you’ll probably get some of those amazing speakers to drop in and give their two cents.

For example, I’m heading to Podcamp Toronto at the end of February and I’ve noticed there are currently no sessions on mobile marketing. So I’m going to suggest one and ask some of the speakers who are doing cool things with mobile if they’d be willing to take part. All it will cost me is the humility to accept if some or all say no. Even if they do, I’ll be able to get a group of smart participants together and come away with insights on mobile marketing that would be hard to get otherwise.

In these lean times there is really no excuse for not taking advantage of great free learning that events like podcamps have to offer.

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Welcome to Episode #28, Part 2 of Being Buff – Marketing the Social Economy – The ConsciousImages Podcast for Monday Nov. 24, 2008. This episode: Being Buff stops by Podcamp Ottawa 2 and talks with agent Smith (no, not the guy from The Matrix).

· Welcome to show #28, Part 2.

· Phone Number: 206-202-6340

· Email: consciousimages(at)gmail(dot)com

· iTunes!!

6 for 6 letter writing campaign for the Congo.

Please join 6 for 6 Facebook group – and write – and encourage others to do so.

Blog page devoted to the campaign.

First show since Obama got elected!!

Attended Podcamp Ottawa 2. Organized by Mark Blevis, Bob Goyetche, Andrea Ross, Mauricio Ortolani.

Take aways:

· Getting together face-to-face is what it’s all about. Use social media tools to help you do more of that.

· Talk to anyone and everyone at events. You can learn something from everyone. For example, I learned about John Chow who, I’m told, makes $30,000 a month from his Vancouver-based blog.

· Today, as always, power and freedom comes from making your self a trust agent. However, the internet makes it much way easier to do this because a key part of becoming a trust agent is giving away valuable stuff for free and the internet allows you to give away limitless digital stuff. Want to more about what a trust agent is and how to become one? Listen to this episode’s conversation…

· Looking for place to upload your video podcasts? Don’t just think YouTube. Also think about BlipTV, Vimeo, and Viddler.

Conversation (not interview – thanks Mitch Joel) about Trust Agents with Julien Smith who is writing a book on the subject with Chris Brogan.

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Tomorrow I’m off to Podcamp Ottawa 2 at the National Arts Centre and it’s going to be a very different experience from Podcamp Montreal that I attended a few weeks ago. There will no presentations – only conversations, led by those who have signed up to do so. There will be no wifi, laptops or back channel Twitter chat. There will be no – believe it – PowerPoint.

There will only be one big group of us, split in to two participant led discussion groups in one big room.  We’ll order pizzas at lunch and wrap up by 4pm.

I have signed up to lead a discussion with the working title How to Monetize Your Passion for Social Media which I hope will be a lively discussion as this is a controversial topic among social media folk.

Podcamp Ottawa really is about joining the conversation – physically.

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