To think about for Podcamp AZ 2011
tdhurst
until that's decided, here are a few things I'd like some help with in
covering for next year. I'm not expecting a response any time soon,
and I'll remind you after the holidays.
1. Recording all sessions
-We have more than enough equipment and people to do this, whether
audio or video. I'd like to make this happen next year.
2. Inviting national names
-Attendance has steadily decreased year after year, and if we truly
want Podcamp AZ to be the best, all-encompassing, free event in the
Valley, we need some web celebs to drive attendance.
3. Kid tracks
-Gangplank Jr has offered to run their own track/room/whatever
specifically for kids programming. Perhaps we could give them a room
for a few hours, similar to how we planned to have a true podcamp
unconference room this year.
4. Pre and after parties
-Would love to have events on both Friday and Sunday nights. Yes, it's
a lot of work, but this would also give people a reason to travel and
stay here for the weekend.
5. Breakfast/lunch on site
-We lose a ton of people after lunch and always get people here late.
Why not have lunch brought in by a local business?
6. Fucking hanging name badges
-I personally hate these things. They're hard to read, impossible to
correct and feel wasteful. I'd very much like to go with stick-on
label things.
7. Registration (web and onsite) by EventDay
-Scott Cate's yet-to-be-released service will be available to us by
then. I've seen it used for a 1000 person Microsoft event and for
AZEC10. We can preprint our logo on some labels and then print the
names on site as people check in. Program is web-based, so all we'd
need is a computer and possibly a $99 label printer if Cate doesn't
let us borrow his, but I suspect he will.
8. Sponsors
-We need real sponsors this year or establish some sort of donation
program. You think people would give $5-10?
9. Genius Panels
-The panels were well attended and went very well the second day after
I figured out they needed heavy moderation. Next year we'll need to
assign a moderator for each session.
10. Shirts
-I loved being able to print shirts on site and I think Charles is
open to doing it again.
Happy thanksgiving!
Kathy Jacobs
1) Sponsors: I am not leading the effort to get sponsors next year. I'll help as I can, but someone else can lead it up :)
2) Food on site would be wonderful. Too bad it is the one draw back to UAT: You have the choice to use the cafe (or its catering) or not having food. It is one policy I wish we could get an exemption for. The cafe is fine for grab and go, but not for full on event food. And, it's expensive.
Other than that, I agree with what Tyler has said here.
PS: Did we get our desired weekend for next year?
Kathy Jacobs
Microsoft MVP OneNote and PowerPoint
Find me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/callkathy
Visit my blog at http://www.vitaminch.com/blogs
I believe life is meant to be lived. But:
if we live without making a difference, it makes no difference that we lived
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Xopher
personally and have seen people ask on twitter where they can see/listen
to sessions online.
2: We do need more big names, national as well as international. The
thing is we need to start talking with them ASAP to find out their
schedules and find ways to sweeten the deal for them to come out. I've
talked to big names for other conferences and they generally
require/want some sort of funding to make it worth their time to take
time out of their schedule and travel.
3: We have always had a very ranged crowd some years with several
kids/teens, I agree we need a kid track maybe 1-2 sessions each day.
4: Not only are the parties fun, but they give people a way to
communicate and network outside of the sessions, building a larger
community.
5: I think this has been looked into in the past but there were issues
that came up because of the on site cafe being a for profit business.
The school's cafe catered the first year and the prices were not good at
all considering the food selection and quality that was provided. This
is something we need to talk with the school about and see if we can
arrange as I am sure there are local businesses that would cater us as a
sponsorship/donation and as a way to get their name out.
6: Stick on name badges just seem cheap to me, I like badge holders but
I agree hanging them off a lanyard sucks as you basically need the badge
to be double sided. I don't know how many people saw the badge holders I
had other than my hat, one was a yo-yo style and the other was a clip
on, you can get about 1k of the clip ons for around $30-50 and then the
badge would always be facing correctly.
7: Oh god please yes. This years registration was such a mess and ended
up becoming a full time job for me.
8: I believe sponsors should be a year round endeavor, we need to be
always looking and always trying to cozy up with companies to ensure
that we have the funding we need/want.
I also had the idea of selling PCAZ shirts year round to make money,
there were quite a few people expressing interest in the orange shirts.
If we make a shirt design out side of the standard conference shirt we
make, sort of a limited edition, we could sell them for more and then
bank any profit out side of what we pay to brand-x. I am also personally
trying to start talks with Cisco to see about sponsoring us a webx
account to use for the meetings going forward and hopefully getting to
them to bring out some of their nifty teleconferencing stuff for next year.
9: The genius panels were a huge success, these need to be streamed live
in the future and the moderator can even field questions from the online
viewers.
10: I liked them being able to print shirts on site, it really frees up
a lot of overhead from printing costs, also see point 8 on the shirts.
Dani Cutler
Is anyone open to having a Post-Podcamp meeting sometime next month? It doesn't need to be as long as the regular sessions. Just a meet up for an hour or so to look back over how the weekend went, and start jotting down those ideas for next year as well. I know holiday time is busy time, but I think it's important. I feel like the sooner we start preparing, the better jump we can get on the bigger things we want to accomplish, like big names and big sponsors. This is the 5 year mark, and we need to show that we are not "Podcamp fading", but getting even better!
What do you think?
Chris Lee
Chris Lee