Minutes from May 17 meeting

[Karen Unland]

Here's a quick summary of our first post-camp meeting. Mack Male,
Bruce Winter, Debra Ward and Jeff Samsonow were there as well and can
correct me if I'm wrong.

We agreed that our first MediaCamp was a success and were gratified by
the number of attendees who said they'd be interested in another one.
We had 197 participants at the Shaw, and the livestream of the panel
discussion had 133 viewers at its peak. We also seemed to have a
number of people following along on Twitter.

Several people have blogged about the event or otherwise preserved the
day (Alain Saffel in particular). Mack will link to these efforts from
the MediaCamp Edmonton website when he gets a chance.

We also identified room for improvement: for example, a bigger room
(maybe Salons 11 and 12?) to prevent the noise bleed from session to
session. We would also hope to provide lunch on site next time, which
means raising enough money to afford lunch on site, which means
getting sponsorship handled long before the next one or finding other
sources of revenue. We also heard people loved the lightning talks and
wanted more hands-on learning.

So, speaking of revenue and hands-on learning and keeping MediaCamp
going, how about this: MediaCamp Labs. For a small fee ($20?),
participants would spend a Saturday morning learning something: how to
use Google Fusion tables, how to map data, how to blog, how to do
whatever you don't know how to do but would help you tell stories and
share information better. If we could hold a lab for, say, 20 people
four or five times in the next year, not only would we help improve
journalism and communications in this city, but we would be halfway
towards paying for lunch next time.

We also contemplated the next big MediaCamp, which would ideally be
held during the post-secondary school year so we can get more students
there (maybe March?)

But before we get ahead of ourselves, let's see what the people think.
Our next step is to survey our participants to see if they really do
want another one, what they'd like to see improved and whether the
MediaCamp Labs idea has any traction. Questions we have come up with
so far:
- Would you attend another MediaCamp?
- Would you recommend MediaCamp to someone else?
- What part of MediaCamp did you like the most: panel, sessions,
lightning talks, meeting people, other
- Would you be interested in hands-on workshops to learn particular
skills?
- What would you like to learn?
- How much would you be willing to pay?
- Are you willing to help organize the next MediaCamp?
- Are you willing to sponsor the next MediaCamp?

If you have other questions, please reply to this post. Mack will
email the survey to attendees.

Kristina Jarvis and Sue Heuman have expressed an interest in helping
to organize the next one. Mack, do you need to invite them to this
group or can they add themselves?

It seems we have reason to continue meeting, so we will. Next meeting
will be held once we have survey results to discuss.

Thanks everyone. This has been a great experience, and from the looks
of it, it's not over.