On a recent Saturday afternoon at the skinnyCorp Threadless office floor on Pearl Street, Boulder PodCamp was reaching its un-conference crescendo: Thirty participants lined up to learn the zombie dance from Thriller, lurching, lunging, pivoting and pirouetting their way through the famous Michael Jackson choreography (taught by the dancer Naomi “Mimi” Meredith). A golden retriever happily cavorted among the throng, a Flying Dog beer keg kept the courage flowing, and video podcasters and photo bloggers dizzily captured it all for later publication. It was a fitting capstone to a day designed to share ideas, learn new skills, and immerse oneself within the new media community of the Front Range.
PodCamp opened its doors the evening before, pulling in a crowd of around fifty, for the purpose of establishing the interests of the group. Organizer Jeremy Tanner first explained the rules: All are equal; all can participate; anyone is free to move among the voluminous break-out sessions without apology. With an empty whiteboard behind him, he then turned to those gathered and sought their curiosity – What, exactly, were they interested in learning or teaching? By the end of an hour the whiteboard was filled and a schedule began taking shape, while the majority of attendees began wandering the remarkable office space of Threadless, meeting and mingling with cold beer in hand before disembarking for the bars of Pearl Street.
On Saturday morning the day kicked off with bountiful bagels and coffee, and every hour three or four different breakouts coalesced in different parts of the office. At 10 AM Andrew Hyde walked a group through the production of a podcast from recording to publication, Neil Simon discussed WordPress plugins with a gathering in the main conference room, while Tanner was found in the corner leading a hearty conversation in social networking etiquette. Throughout the day the fifty attendees leisurely strolled back and forth between breakouts including All Things Twitter, APIs and the Semantic Web, Media Streaming for Second Life, and Citizen Journalism. Standout sessions included Copy Writing by the professional writer Brian Burns (which kept its participants in discussion for ninety minutes), Ronald Lewis’ talks on Amazon’s Cloud Services and how to conduct yourself On/offline, as well as Non-Suck Photos given by Jared Kohlman and Jason Janelle. In this last breakout, after a sixty minute tutorial in the basics of digital photography function and form, Kohlman (who founded Pro Photo Rental) unpacked about a dozen high end cameras for the participants to wander the office and practice snapping.
Those gathered came from a smorgasbord of professions, with publicists and programmers, designers and dilettantes, writers and ragamuffins. Yet the disposition of the day was one of profound congeniality and camaraderie. Concluded Tanner, in reflecting on the experience: “Sure, I picked a time and date, but those who came out and made the event a great one are much of the reason I love Boulder / The Front Range, you all rock!”
It should be noted that Boulder PodCamp, a free event, was generously supported by skinnyCorp Threadless, Slice of Lime, Flying Dog Brewery, Pro Photo Rental, Kevin Menzie, Josh Mishell, Brian Giese, JVonD, and Jared Kohlman.
