Thin Air Summit - Speakers and Registration

I know my blogging about the Thin Air Summit, the New Media Conference in Colorado (Nov 7-9), has been a bit sparse here. In our Web2.0 and New Media discussions on the web one of the mantras that runs through them both is "try something beyond what you've done before." With the Thin Air Summit I've been doing just that, and it has been a little scary, and thus the blogging sparseness. Luckily I have an excellent team working on this with me and it has really come together. I am really looking forward to the event.

To tell you a bit more about the conference (and to quote our website):

We are offering hands-on learning sessions and discussion panels presented by nationally-recognized and local New Media professionals. The size of the Summit is limited to 100 attendees, ensuring an intimate, intensive weekend of collaboration, education and community.

We have our Keynote Speakers, Dave Taylor and Jerimiah Owyang. Right now we are working on finalizing our speaker and panel line up and we are still accepting speaking proposals until September 18.

If you speak on new media, specifically blogging, video or audio and would like to present, I'd love to have you submit a proposal to present.

Proposals will be reviewed by the planning committee and speakers will be selected based on their knowledge level, experience presenting in a 'learning' environment and the relevance of their proposed topic to the conference theme. This is our first year, so we're on a shoestring budget, but the experience we're planning to create should be well worth your time.

You can submit your proposals at: http://www.thinairsummit.com/presenting/

We will be opening registration shortly and I will post an update here (as well as twittering about it.)

MediaCasters.tv

Having watched so many events from a distance and wanted to be there I think MediaCasters.tv is an an awesome idea. What is Mediacasters.tv? Well to quote their press release:

Live events stimulate conversations, but those offsite can’t really respond until later, when “the moment” has passed. What if you could engage from anywhere right as something interesting happened? In real time? Using super flexible, lightweight “social media” tools that make anyone a mediacaster.”

And that is an awesome idea. As I have watched live streaming and chat programs and more evolve and spread I have been wondering - Why can't we create a way for people who can't come to the event to participate and join in the event? I mean, it isn't going to be the same as being there, but it can certainly allow partial involvement and move this "distance is shorter because we can use the network" to the point where it involves participating in actual events.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing how Mediacasters.tv evolves and I'm hoping I will be able to make it down to join in the last day of Boulder Startup Weekend 2 to see it first hand.

I'd love to bring Mediacasters.tv into Colorado Podcamp. New Media is global and local - what a great way to enable both. Thank you Laura "Pistachio" Fitton.

Colorado Podcamp

Back in December I mentioned that discussion were beginning in the area of a Podcamp in Colorado and that I would keep you updated on the plans.

We have started working on the initial planning of Colorado Podcamp over at the Colorado Podcamp Google group.

Right now we are still defining the structure of the event as well as a more specific date than "some time in the summer". But the event will be a BarCamp-Style gathering for people interested in New Media which includes blogs, vlogs, podcasts, vidcasts and more.

If you are interested in find out more, participating in, or helping plan this event please join the Colorado Podcamp Group.

We haven't had our first planning meeting but that will be coming soon. I will keep you posted here, and of course on the group.

Social Connection Across the Virtual/Physical Border

What an exciting year this is turning out to be. My official work has begun to pick up, and I'm pushing personal project internally. In the social media/startup/podcasting/tech sphere I've started to meet up with people in person. Very exciting and interesting to watch.

Online social media is an interesting phenomenon. In a sense it is like the old forums/read news and text based chats in that there is enough distance that a person who is perhaps a bit more shy can feel comfortable speaking in the virtual environment. The interesting twist is that with the addition of video and virtual worlds you begin to feel that you are interacting "for real". While this is true to some extent, real friendships and relationships are created, it has been somewhat startling when you transfer that to the physical realm.

I suppose it is a bit more startling for me. I spent about a year homebound with very little personal interaction beyond the online medium. For that time who I was in groups in online reality (whether virtual worlds or twitter or chats on blogtv etc.) was how I interacted.

The real shock came when I could finally walk well enough to go to a meet up where I knew no one and I found myself feeling uncertain and shy. (This was complicated by the fact that I wasn't sure how to introduce myself, my resume has one name, my public presence has another.) I was shocked at the way I reacted.

Then I thought of how I had acted before my convalescence. Sure I'd join in discussions in groups where I knew people but when it wasn't strictly work based I was on the shy side. Walking up to someone I didn't know and introducing myself was not really something I did.

Here I was expecting myself to act as my outgoing online self, but that hadn't been my modus operandi in the physical world. The contrast is probably why I skipped the meet up for the following couple of months. But I also reflected on my reactions (and got some combo/business cards that make introducing myself much easier.)

Today I went to the Boulder Open Coffee at The Cup. It was a great meet up. I also decided that I was going to embrace my online style and make it my in person style. It was a bit scary at times. I could tell I'm still getting the hang of it but it was promising. And I'm hoping to make it to the New Technology meet up this evening, this time with more confidence.

What I have found is that although the online networks are incredibly powerful (and can cause a person to grow) it is important to go try it out in the physical face to face world. The interaction is different. The combination of the two realms is awesome.

Podcamp - Coming to Colorado in 2008

Today I went to the Denver Area Podcasters Meetup. It was great talking with Eve and Jim and meeting them in person. I arrived a bit late, so there had already been some discussion, and that discussion included having a Podcamp in Colorado.

We are still at the very beginning stage of it all, but it was very exciting to start talking about it with others. I shared my ideas for doing the event PodcampXL style and I'd love to see those ideas develop.

We have yet to set up the wiki for Podcamp Colorado, but I will post the information on that once it is set up.