banannie

A few highlights of my weekend at PodCamp Philly, as a new PodCamper, podcast fan, and potential podcaster:

Rooming with Kathryn Jones. I met Kathryn on Twitter and we’ve worked together on the site for her production company, Synchronis.TV, so we decided to share the cost of a hotel room. She’s producing (and acting in) the first LIVE scripted show on the internet, “35,” which is set to debut next week. What fun it was to spend time with her! She’s such an inspiration and I saw a lot of parallels between what she’s doing and what I see myself doing as time goes on. Nice that there are women like her blazing that trail. Kathryn also introduced me to people I probably would have been too shy to approach on my own, and I benefited from every one of those conversations.

Hanging with BucketJen, BucketCorey, Andycaster, and Rob Usdin. I listen to Bucket regularly and had fun meeting the people behind it. They did a live recording of their show and let me make my podcasting debut. Coming soon to an mp3 player near you! Andy joined Kathryn and I on our trek down to Triumph for the Saturday night party, only briefly leading us in the wrong direction ;). Rumor has it he’ll have some new content up at Andycast soon! Rob produces the podcast Jersey Jamcast which features homegrown Jersey artists, We know there’s something in the water here that makes for damn good music, it’s great that he’s showcasing it.

Enjoying lunch from a truck under a tree with the best and the brightest in podcasting. Two lunch trucks were parked nearby and a huge group of us sat in the grass and talked over our cheese steaks and sandwiches.

Catching a ride in the Twitter Van! Imagine this. PodCamp Philly organizer Whitney Hoffman offered to drive us back to the hotel from Triumph before heading home. Problem was, she had a 7 seater minivan and 8 people and a huge chunk of the PodCamp birthday cake to cram into it. But no worries. Mark Blevis, CC Chapman and Kathryn Jones sat in the back. Lynette Young and Whitney of course were up front. Chris Penn and Steve Garfield sat in the middle row bucket seats and then there was me, balancing between the bucket seats with the cake on my lap. And also my cellphone with which we recorded a message for Twitter. Now, that was fun.

Hanging at the hotel with Kathryn Jones, Christopher Penn, and Steve Garfield. We were all staying at the hotel, still a little wired, and definitely hungry, so the four of us grabbed a bite at WaWa and sat in the hotel lobby for oh, at least an hour or so. Steve and I talked a bit about the cult of personality, and internet celebrity (he thinks it’s funny that when people email him and he responds, sometimes they seem surprised that he would.) Chris brought up the topic of how the internet has given us Superpowers. I won’t even try to explain it (he does a much better job) but if you think about it, he’s absolutely right!

Casual conversations with interesting people. Had great convos with people like Norm Huelsman, who helped organize PodCamp Pittsburgh, Chris Parandian of MobileDiner.com who graciously took and emailed a photo of me wearing Brian Conley’s mask, and Brian himself, who is producing the amazing podcasts Alive in Baghdad and Alive in Mexico. Also Twitter friends theLunatic and MisterBoh, and how could I forget the Blog King himself!

The sessions. Chris Penn on Social Networking. It’s the PEOPLE! He really gets it. Rand Bradbury on how to choose and use microphones and mixers (I learned so much!) Mike Wolk from Apple on how to use Garage Band. That session had the brain cells firing, I’m trying to make the time to get into the software and play! Brian Conley’s session on producing Alive in Baghdad, and how all you really need to do a project like his is the passion, was inspiring.

Even though I left at lunch time on Sunday I still was able to score myself an original piece of art :).

I want to thank the great team who put Podcamp Philly together, and I look forward to meeting more people at PodCamps future and whatever else may come along.