Podcamp Pittsburgh: Day Zero

Well,  this Friday night started with a Meet-n-Greet at the Art Institute of  Pittsburgh in the Gallery.  Being a former, and the mayhem guys being  current, students of those hallowed halls, It was great to be  there...drinking beer...It was really a smooze-fest, which I thought  helped get into the mood for the weekend.  I deffinatley noticed those  that attended this to be the most approachable of the weekend.  I  walked in with Kyle, Missy, Will(lunchbox), and Chad the Shad walked  in, and was intercepted on the way to the beer by Chris Brogen of www.network2.tv with a "Mayhem Guys!  I gotta see what their about!"  Not the response we expected, but why the hell
not.  Damn near the entire MTS (my day job) staff and significant  others were there as well, which I'm glad, because I know a couple of  them are interested in getting into some form of new media.  We met a  lot of good people in the biz, including a the TalkShoe.com crew, guys  from Libsyn, Podcast411, and Something To Be Desired, and others.  

Podcamp Pittsburgh: Day One

The  Mayhem Crew (this time adding Doc Remedy) and Kyle went early, hung  out, scoped some swag*PIC*, and things got rolling with a starting  address by Justin and Chris.  Our first session to attend was Alex Lindsey's  Greenscreen sessions.  Chad the Shad, a video major, was really  impressed when he found out this guy works with ILM and had done work  on Episode 3 (that's Star Wars).  He talked about a couple things that  I was interested in my day job, as we've experimented with the  processes in the past few months.  I know we'll be looking into some  new stuff that was talked about for our video work at MTS.  Time will  tell.  Great start. 

The third session of the day was Andrew Baron from RocketBoom   talking about how we need to look at different ways to show what kind of traffic you have.  Be it Google Trends, Del.icio.us, technorati, and others.  Definitely was a good source of new ways to look at what I'm doing. 

Lunch.   Hm.  Vegantarian.  Moving on, we took the opportunity to get around and  talk to more people, and film, what we're calling, "Podcast Mayhem  Show".  We interviewed a few people, including some TalkShoe guys, the gentleman from One Minute How-To,  Chris Brogan(creator of Podcamp, who apparently loves us, wanted me to  freestyle, and is generally nuts and would fit into the show), Justin  (organizer for PC Pittsburgh and STDB creator,  and former coworker), and Laura for a local political blog.   Deffinately an entertaining vid when I get it done later this week. 

After  lunch was a well attended discussion by Justin and his STDB crew.  A  lot was the story I've heard plenty of times, but more detailed.  Took  notes of all their self described "don't do it this way: like we did"  moments.  Got a few ideas for possible future video projects. 

We hung out in the hall for the next session time, preparing  mentally (read: goofing off) for the next session.  This is when we met  Laura of the political blog and exchanged vid interviews. 

We  went up and prepared for our discussion. Waited, as everyone was  running late.  We had probably 20 people, which was excellent for  running against Alive in Baghdad, Chris Brogan, and something added to  the schedule.  We gave Pocky to those who showed, and had a good talk.  We started with the explanation of the chops.  And that anyone could  "woo" and someone would get chopped.  Kyle woo'ed a lot.  Hilarity and  pain ensued.  As did information!  We talked about how we stay in reach  with our fans, through Myspace and such.  The guys from Should I Drink That were  front and center, and were very receptive.  Of course, we ended our  time with chair shots and a super kick.  Enjoy the video when I get it  up! 

After  cleaning up after ourselves, we head down to the screening room to see  Alex Lindsey's demonstration of new media interactivity.  The big word  from this was the clickable video.  Again, Chad, Kyle, and myself were  in awe at the possibilities.  The future is now!

(if your hear for Podcamp stuff only, skip to the next heading)

From  this point, we had to skip the after hours festivities since we were  already attending IWC November Pain 2 down in Elizabeth, PA.  It was a  venture, with a fine, gourmet dinner, with meat, at Sheetz.  We get  there, grab some tickets (at this point, Kyle is replaced with Matt, my  brother, for the evening), and walk on in.  Norm Conners stopped us  asking about our tickets.  At first I thought he thought we walked in  without tix since I had them rip all five and then handed them out.   But I guess he mistook us for anothe group that preordered.  It was  cool, because we were like, "no, we're from the Wrestling Mayhem  Show".   He had seen my tag on the board, I think he said.  We then met  Chad's contacts from another local "fed" that the RWF will be working  with soon (the exact letters escape me at the moment).  The only name I  recall id Dr. Feelbad.  Wish I didn't have Tech to go to Friday to see  these guys train.  The show was amazing, go see IWC Recap for those details.  But in short, excellent matches, especially from  our Wrestling Mayhem "Friends of the Show", Jason Gory, Shima Xion, and  Fabulous John McChesney (the first 3 time Super Indy champion after  this night.).  The surprise hit of the night for me was Hentai vs Troy  Lords in a Last Man Standing Match.  Which sort of ended up as a TLC  match.  Matt got some excellent pics.

Afterward,  we attended the usual after party down the road. We caught up with the  aformentined Friends of Show and got a pic with the Mayhem Crew, talked  with Dr. Feelbad and his crew, and even with Hentai.  Both him and  Lords looked literally wrecked.  

Podcamp Pittsburgh: Day Two

Day  two.  The pain.  I hadn't gone to bed till 5 AM.  But I wasn't the only  one.  Much of the weekend's attendees went to Bosa Nova and the Tiki  Lounge.  Wish I could have gone to meet the Tiki Lounge crew.  But  alas...

Made it in time to catch the other STDB session "Bringing out  your inner character".  It was interesting and I got a couple of ideas  to help with my CRAP stage performance and Mayhem casts.  Thankfully,  some of their suggestions I was already doing, to a degree, but its  nice to have some direction. 

Then I went to Chris Brogan's session on community building.   I do recall some about Scriggity and a discussion about women in  podcasting.  I think my brain was shorting out at this point of the  morning. 

Next was the Monetizing New Media discussion.  I wrote down all of the  ideas that were brought up, but felt the idea of walking away deciding  what works and doesn't before leaving that day.  There were just too  many whose ventures depended on one method or another, so I ducked on  Part 2 after lunch.

Lunch, itself, was productive.  I talked with Lynsie, I believe, from Spreadshirt about a few things, as well as Lara again, David from Network2, who showed me his own geekcore group he was involved with, and Renee, a photographer for MMA shows.  I hope to get her on a Mayhem Show to tell some stories soon.

Hit up the Geek Riot recording, interesting panel, check it out when he  posts it (don't know when he plans to).  Then checked out a write in of  Brian Conley and his Alive in Baghdad show.  I wish him the best of  luck in that venture. 



Pros

 
• I  don't know how many people I met.  Either those that can provide  services, fellow podcasters, and aspiring podcasters.  I have so many  leads to go on, from people to talk to on my shows, services, media  ideas, etc.
   
 
• Education.  Learned a lot about Greenscreening, new video ideas, and what others are doing out there.  

Cons

 
• Vegan/vegetarian  food - Not that there's anything wrong with it socially.  Such is the  risk of hanging with artistic types. (came home and had a pepperoni  pizza, thankfully)
 
• Mixed Messages - "Don't expect to make money"/"We need to  learn how to make money"  A few new podcasters were confused by this  message, it felt. 
   

Don't take the cons as a negative.  This is a new concept,  and will have its growing pains.  I just hope the next Podcampers can  take some lessons, as will we, as I hear Podcamp should return to the  'burgh sooner than you think. 
follow up
As a , I was talking with Shawn of Geek Riot(yeh, and my boss at work)   and we were talking about putting together a cast for the Podcampers in  the coming weeks to talk about what we thought, liked, and didn't like,  about the weekend.  I think there's some talk on the latest Geek Riot, and I'm sure on our Wrestling Mayhem Show this week.