The personal blog of Eric Skiff

Wow. That’s just about all I can say after yesterday. That, and thank you.

Me, C.C. Chapman, Mike Hudack, and Amit Gupta at the “Entrepreneurial Improv Theater” session.
Photo Credit: Grace Piper of fearlesscooking.tv

For anyone who’s doesn’t know what the heck I’m talking about, I was one of the co-organizers for a unconference event here in New York City called PodCampNYC. The basic gist of an unconference is that anyone and everyone is invited to speak, all you have to do is sign up on the wiki. Attending the event is free and by the time festivities began, we’d signed up over 1,300 registrants and scheduled over 90 sessions.

I’ve been part of the unconference movement since Amit Gupta brought Barcamp to NYC in January 2006. Since then I’ve attended countless camps and helped organize BarCampNYC2 and now PodCampNYC.

Podcamp twists the original Barcamp model a bit – instead of the traditional “if you come to the event, you have to present” mantra, the focus of Podcamp is education, sharing knowledge, and spreading the word. Everyone from podcasting newbies to mainstream media folks are invited to attend and participate.

Since the net of possible participants is cast a bit wider, the scale of Podcamp is often a bit bigger than Barcamp. With PodCampNYC, “a bit bigger” would be a bit of an understatement. With over 1,300 people possibly showing up throughout the day, there were a lot of things to consider that often wouldn’t need to be worried about. Things like sign in crunches early in the morning, traffic flow, and getting information out to everyone in a timely fashion had to be planned and worked on. We also had to move to a giant venue with 2 ballrooms and 10 breakout rooms to accommodate everyone, which came with added cost and the need for lots of sponsorships to keep the event free.

One of the hardest decisions we made was setting the schedule in advance of the event. Often unconferences are planned by putting a schedule grid on the wall and letting people fill it in themselves. We worried a lot about losing the spirit of the unconference by having the organizers set the schedule, but by the end of the day, I was 100% sure that it was the correct decision. I’ll have another post soon for anyone thinking about putting on their own unconference and the pros and cons of setting the schedule in advance, but the most important piece to remember is to always be flexible, and to leave a it of “swing room” so that ad hoc sessions can still happen throughout the day.

Another major concern that I had going into the event was that participants would feel more like “attendees” being talked to than active members of the community who are shaping the event. I’ve been parroting Chris Brogan’s line from the opening of PodCampNYC every chance I get for the last month: “This is your event. If you see something that’s broken or something that can be done better, please just fix it. Don’t worry about finding an organizer or asking permission, just make it right.”

We recruited tons of volunteers, asked for community ambassadors, and at least 1 out of 10 people who attended spoke at the event. All in all, I think the spirit of participation and creating your own event was evident throughout, and I hope it’s as infectious now as it was for all of us organizers. I know at the closing discussion alone we learned about 2 more PodCamps in the works, and I imagine the seed will be sown for lots more people as well.

So, as I said in my last twitter last night: Thank you. That’s really all that can be said. Thank you to our speakers, our sponsors, our participants, the hotel. It was amazing. Thanks