Oh I could post tons of interesting things right on this here blog, and I will - later.

It’s summer - unplug if you can, take your kids fishing.

I’ll be back later this summer…

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Photo by Nico

On the thursday before PAB (when will I stop mentioning that?), Cat, Neil, Nico, AJ and I went to check out Christa Couture who was performing at a coffee shop in montreal. You may remember AJ and I have been singing her praises since we featured her first single in March 2005.

She’s on a cross-Canada tour to promote her new album, “The Wedding Singer and the Undertaker.”.. Even though I had an advance copy of the album, I only gave it a quick listen before seeing her perform it. I have to admit though, that since seeing her perform it, I’ve played it several times. It has a great flow, and it was worth the wait.

A bit fancier arrangements this time out,some horns and slide guitars get added to the sound, and don’t take anything away from Christa’s beautiful voice.

I’m serious, this girl could sing the phonebook and I wouldn’t miss a word.

After the show, she joined us at our table, and she, AJ and I had a nice chat we recorded for use in an upcoming show. She’s super nice, and real, and everything I’d hoped she’d be in person.

Anyhow, if you get a chance to see her, go. And if you get a chance to pick up the album, do.

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Ok - I listen to a lot of different podcasts. I do reach a point though, where there is no human way I can catch up.

In podcasts, just as blog reading, people feel a twinge of guilt when they “Mark all as read”. If you listen or read more than three things, it will snowball at one point and you’ll be looking for ways to injure yourself so you can spend the hospital recovery time catching up.

Well, here’s the thing. Typically, hospital stays are getting shorter, so the self-inflicted wound you would have to endure may also prevent you from listening to podcasts, thereby making the whole exercise less-than-useful.

Here is Bob’s magic 1-step solution :

“MARK ALL AS READ/NOT NEW/HEARD..” whatever.

Assert yourself in the confidence that if anyone there talked about something REALLY important about you, someone will let you know. Now I’m not saying never listen to anything, that’s not the point, but give yourself permission to start with a clean slate.

In fact, for more advanced mark-all-as-heard people, the next step is to delete ALL your podcast subscriptions, and resubscribe only to the ones you miss. You may find you have room for new voices and ideas, and will enjoy fresh perspectives.

Of course, it goes without saying that you should absolutely NEVER unsubscribe to anything I’m remotely involved in…

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    And so continues the “week after PAB”… Mark and I have received both separately and together, emails, voice mails, audio, video, blog posts telling us opinions about PAB and what was liked and disliked, loved or hated.  Thankfully, at this point, more people enjoyed the event than not, but that doesn’t mean we can sit and be happy with that.

There have been very flattering you-changed-my-life blog posts, some insulting-just-to-be-an-ass posts from people who weren’t even there, and also a few posts from people who genuinely didn’t enjoy their PAB experience. I appreciate all feedback, and promise to use as much as we can when we plan out our next event.

By the way, I’m not linking to anyone on this post, because I want the flow to continue without my influence. There’s a tendancy to jump on people’s negative posts, and I don’t want to promote that - an honest post about an experience you didn’t enjoy deserves respect, not piling upon.

The thing about organizing a not-for-profit event is that measuring success is somewhat different, perhaps more closely tied to how we build communities than sheer numbers or dollars. So while we’re happy that we’ve covered our costs this year, the fact that some people are disappointed with their experience means we still have work to do.

So far, there seem to be two main areas where we missed with some :

1. lack of technical sessions
2. social interaction, especially for people new to the event

1. Agreed 100%. And this was by design. We decided this year that PAB wasn’t going to be the “intro to podcasting”  event. There’s nothing wrong with learning about RSS, iTunes, editing, etc… These are all needed skills, and I agree there needs to be basic, intermediate and advanced discussions available on all these topics. Just not this year, not at PAB. When we started, there was very little information available online, Podcamps hadn’t yet started, and that was a need we felt an obligation to pursue.  Looking back at 2006/7 we had sessions on building studios, recording and editing techniques, interview methods, etc,etc, etc.. It was well received, but I wonder who would have been happy to see that (again) for a 3rd year. We specifically decided that the topics would be about “bringing it to the next level” - and I think for the most part that’s what was delivered. Could we have more technical topics? Perhaps. Someone suggested the friday afternoon workshops would be a good place for that - I think that’s a wonderful idea.

2. Agreed - 80%. We did a lot to encourage social interaction - the boat cruise, making sure people knew where some were going to eat… breaks between each session, lunch on site, making the conference room available off hours - etc..  I do see now that we could have done more (and will do more in the future) for people who are new to the event. I know how great it is to have someone you don’t know reach out to you and say “Come, join us.”. I want the same to happen to everyone at PAB. Maybe appoint ambassadors to help new people or something. I know this group is very receptive, and would go out of their way to make someone feel welcomed. Perhaps as organizers it’s something we can help facilitate.

That being said, no matter how much is done, there’s a limit to what conference organizers (be it PAB, Podcamp etc..) can do to help with socializing. It’s a social event, for people who tend to live very public lives. At some point you have to stick out your hand and say “Hi, I don’t know anyone here.. Let’s chat”..  It’s a VERY hard thing to do.. There have been many occasions I’ve not done it and I wish I had. It can be so hard to put yourself on the line like that. Oh but there’s the reward. Podcasters/social media types tend to be a pretty friendly and welcoming bunch. So it’s not like you’re asking the prom queen to sleep with you, you’re asking someone with similar interests for a conversation.

I’d still love to make it easier for people to connect, and there have been great suggestions, both from happy attendees and less-than-happy attendees. The great thing about this space is we can learn and grow together.

What are your thoughts? Whether you were there or not, how have you connected with people at an event like this? Or how have you made people connect?

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… and find where it says :

 September 20 and September 21.

If you have a french calendar like me, it will say

 Septembre 20 et Septembre 21.

on top of those two days, in very big block letters, write:

 PODCAMP

MONTREAL

UQAM design Pavillion
1440 Sanguinet Street (Corner of Sainte-Catherine)

More news to come as it develops. Follow the development of this at podcampmontreal.org

I’m proud to be part of this team, this will be a great event!

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 .. to quote Stevie Z..

Just got home a little while ago from Podcasters Across Borders. This was a great event, and I couldn’t be more pleased with how it turned out. I’m fried, but it’s a good kind of tired - actually, it’s one of the best kinds of tired - the tired you get after a successful event.

Every year I’m reminded of what makes PAB different. The vibe, the people, the sharing of information and affection - Neil Gorman called it love. I think he’s on to something. Here was a room full of people who were using the fact they are content creators to come to connect and show appreciation for each other - it was and is very powerful.

Our hope this year was to help people “Bring it to the next level”.. The speakers sure did. These people brought their “A” game to the event, and we all benefited from it. It was very hard to remind ourselves that these people weren’t professional speakers, but passionate content creators.  If you boil down the weekend to it’s essence, that’s really what it was all about- creating compelling content and reaching your  community.

2 days of content and ideas being shoved into your brain can make for a tired bunch of people, but the room was focused, collaborative, and very positive. For an event like this to work, the attendees have to decide that it’s going to work. This group did that and more.

We tried a different physical layout this year.. we had decided to go with a wider room layout instead of long like last year.. added to that, Mark had the idea to see if the hotel could supply couches for the area nearest the podium. People loved it - it created intimacy (and comfort!) and really helped set the vibe for the room. The couches are here to stay I think

Some interesting stats I compiled about this weekend :

• Debates over delivery mechanisms : 0.
• People who asked why you need an iPod to listen : 1 (ok, he was joking)
• Corporate led/influenced sessions: 0.
• Amount paid to each speaker for presenting: 0.
• Hugs exchanged : hundreds
• Days I would like to wait before I see all these people again: 0.

I’ve traditionally called the week after PAB the “Post-PAB letdown”, and while sure, we go from having a million conference things on our minds and try to reclaim thinking about “normal” life, I know I feel different this time. It may sound corny, but this vibe transcends physical space.

This year, I leave PAB feeling challenged, inspired and motivated. After being in this space since the “early days”, it becomes easy to get used to what we’re doing and how we do it.. To get a nudge and feel the spark re-lit is truly wonderful. I’ve come away with ideas for things I’m going to try, both in podcasting and elsewhere -

Thanks to everyone who had anything at all to do with this weekend. Every single one of you is what Chris Brogan would call a rockstar, but I’ll just call you my friends.

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Photo by Mark Blevis

So the weekend before our annual conference… instead of panicking over last minute details like wifi and food and stuff… Mark and I grabbed our kids and headed to the flooded lands of the Saint Lawrence seaway at Long Sault for a father’s day camping weekend.

The weather was menacing at first, but by Saturday afternoon it was clear that we were being well served by the weather-diety of your choice, and we had a great weekend.

Surprisingly, the computers stayed off the whole weekend, and perhaps somewhat unsurprisingly, we recorded a podcast episode by the campfire. Look for the next episode of CPB to have a very different feel.

It was a great weekend, I got to bring my son fishing for the first time, and to enjoy watching him meet and play with Mark’s kids. It still surprises me that after all these years our kids hadn’t spent any time together. Well that’s fixed now..

This was exactly the recharge I needed before the craziness that is hosting a conference, and I think i’ll be able to sail into PAB more relaxed than previous years..

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Way back before the beginning of time (Aug/Sept 2004).. I discovered podcasting. I was thrilled to see the promise this new distribution method had, and it hooked into my love of all things audio and radio. I remember calling by lifelong friend AJ and telling him about this new thing. AJ and I live very different lives, I’m heavily into technology, and he isn’t. The way I was able to boil it down for him was to explain that it’s radio over the net. That’s all I had to say - we were putting the studio together in my basement within weeks.

AJ and I had done pirate radio together in the early 90’s, and even tried to go legit by trying to get a community broadcast license from the CRTC (Canada’s FCC-ish Borg).. Of course the paperwork and hoops would prove to be too much for us, and the dream died there and then. Technology then caught up to our wishes, and via podcasting we found the (legal) outlet we were looking for.

Here we are in 2008, and The Bob and AJ show just put out it’s 100th podcast episode.. If we were to count all those pirate broadcasts on CNOT-FM, that would put us at least around 150. We took 2 breaks, from 92-04 and 6 months or so in 06-07.. Yet the friendship itself never took time off..

100 episodes isn’t a big deal anymore, many podcasters have reached that goal (hell Chris Penn is over 800!). But it has truly been a blast to “work” with AJ for all these shows, and even more, it’s been a blast to call AJ my friend for around 25 years.

There are 2 lessons here :

• If the government makes things too complicated, a way around the complication is always found. This applied to radio, and watch it apply to DRM, DMCA, travel, tolls, Don Cherry, etc…

• No matter what you do, it’s oh so much better if you do it with people you love.

Happy 100th AJ, let’s keep doing this, ok?

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 Standard Podcast [8:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Some of you heard it stream online, but in case you missed it, here’s the audio from my interview on Live 88.5 fm earlier today.

it clocks in at about 8 minutes on the clock, and about 2 db dynamic range on the compressor..

gotta love FM radio

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… it seems..

around 8:30am…on live 88.5

I sure hope they edit out all that stuff I said about how much I hate social media.

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