Fashion and ridiculous pants aside, if there’s one thing you can never take away from MC Hammer, he could DANCE.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMzoBkaFxh4[/youtube]
Ah, the 90s.
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The One Laptop Per Child project is opening its doors on November 12 to purchasing. For 199, you can donate a laptop to a child in a developing nation.
For399, you can get one yourself and donate one under their Give 1 Get 1 program beginning November 12.
I’m buying one for myself, but not for charitable reasons.
Think carefully. Thousands, if not millions, of brand new Internet users will be signing on for the first time on these machines. If you don’t have one, you have no idea what their experience will be like, especially with your brand and your products.
Frankly, if you’re in marketing and you don’t buy one of these, you’re missing a boat that will be sailing very soon.
Once You Step Up, You Can Never Go Back
One of my fondest memories of PodCamp Boston 2 was sitting at lunch on Sunday talking with one of my martial arts instructors, Dennis Mahoney, about profound knowledge and Sisyphus vs. stairs. I’m constantly in search of profound knowledge, which, as Anthony Robbins defines it, is knowledge that once you understand it, makes an immediate impact and difference in your life.
Sisyphus, for those who slept through mythology, was a king punished for trickery by the gods to a hellish fate: push a large rock up a hill, only to have it roll back down, and be forced to repeat that task for eternity.
Most people’s lives can be described as Sisyphean. They wake up, go to work, come home, drink and watch TV, fall asleep, and repeat the next day until one day when they don’t wake up any more. Many activities are the same – working out, for example, is Sisyphean. You benefit as long as you keep pushing, but the moment you stop, the boulder starts to roll down hill.
Stepping up is different. Profound knowledge enables stepping up. Once you understand something, once you grasp profound knowledge, you can’t go back to the person you used to be. You are forever changed, forever better, and nothing except extreme forgetfulness can ever force you to step back.
The example I cite often is the rule of thirds in photography. Look through your camera viewfinder, draw a tic-tac-toe grid on it, and position your subjects at the intersections of the vertical and horizontal lines. Immediately, anyone who doesn’t understand this technique will take better photographs if they practice it. There’s of course still tons to learn, from lighting to composition to aperture, etc. but just this one piece of profound knowledge changes you forever, and you can’t go back.
What are you doing in life that is Sisyphean, and how can you convert more of your life from pushing boulders to stepping up, making breakthroughs? What profound knowledge have you acquired in your life that you can share here in the comments?
Everybody Needs A Ninja
I have the good fortune in life to have access to lots of very, very talented people. It’s my pleasure to be able to bring their works together and present them as best as I can. In this case, I present the music of podsafe music superstar Matthew Ebel and the martial talents of Stephen K. Hayes and many of his senior students demonstrating their skills at the SKH Quest Fall Festival in Dayton, OH.
Buy the song Everybody Needs a Ninja in MP3 now!
For more information:
Stephen K. Hayes To-Shin Do martial arts
Matthew Ebel’s new album, Goodbye Planet Earth
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There’s an economics concept called moral hazard that I kept hearing on Bloomberg and finally did a little research on.
Moral hazard refers to the prospect that a party insulated from risk (such as through insurance) will be less concerned about the negative consequences of the risk than they otherwise might be; for example, an individual with insurance against automobile theft may be less vigilant about locking the car even though locking the car is a simple risk reduction strategy. Moral hazard arises because an individual or institution in a transaction does not bear the full consequences of its actions, and therefore has a tendency or incentive to act less carefully than would otherwise be the case, leaving another party in the transaction to bear some responsibility for the consequences of those actions.
Moral hazard goes by another common name – rewarding behaviors with an outcome that’s opposite the goals you want to achieve. See also mixed messages, mixed signals, and rewarding stupidity. The most prominent example of moral hazard I can think of is an electorate that was tired of the Iraq war re-electing the president, thereby reinforcing behaviors it didn’t want.
I mention this because a number of times during this past weekend, the topic of giver’s gain came up. Give to get, give, etc., and the only caution I would mention is to keep moral hazard in mind. Give to get, but make sure that you’re doing so for the right reasons and not providing an incentive for unwanted behaviors.
The Superheroes of PodCamp Boston 2
One of the problems with an event the size of PodCamp Boston 2 is that things get lost along the way and after. Events like that need a public face or two, but rarely does the rest of the group get publicity. I want to take a moment to single out six individuals who made PodCamp Boston 2 possible; without them, there would have been no event at all, period.
Whitney Hoffman: if there’s a human being who can be said to epitomize the “organize” part of organizer, it’s Whitney. Without her, quite frankly, this ship would have been sunk. From smaller details like how many signs should be printed to large things like calling the Boston tourism bureau to secure the Seaport Hotel as a venue, Whitney made the vast majority of PodCamp Boston operations work seamlessly; but then, I would expect that of someone who both the ADA and the NFL have tapped to manage part of the Super Bowl’s operations.
Steve Sherlock: Steve Sherlock was our true collaboration enabler, arranging weekly conference calls and providing detailed transcripts of who attended and takeaways from the meetings. Steve also co-piloted registration with Susan Kaup and made that just work, too. Hint for future event planners: the conference call is a GREAT idea, and second hint, if an organizer doesn’t make at least 50% of the calls, they’re not an organizer, just a tourist.
someone: or Chel, as she’s more commonly known. Chel picked up a ton of administrative details, stuff that seems unimportant but will quickly grow to nightmarish proportions if left ignored, like contract dates, reminders, etc. Chel also took leadership of managing ALL the PodCamp Boston event entertainment on Saturday night, a mammoth undertaking given how many multiple, conflicting priorities there were. If you had any fun Saturday night, she’s to thank for it.
Susan Kaup: or Sooz, depending on the context. Sooz brought us game day operations, including BostonNOW’s sponsorship of registration, and I swear she knocked over a Staples truck to bring as much stuff as she did. Sooz also organized our ad hoc volunteer teams and recruited additional people to help manage registration operations.
Dave LaMorte: Dave stepped up and brought serious horsepower to game day, managing all the directionals, signage, and other organizational things that helped you find your way to where you needed or wanted to be, from lugging around aluminum meter boards to managing the posted grid.
Last but certainly not least, Marni Shapiro of pulvermedia. You know the really nice venue we had, sponsored by VON, and the great A/V, seating, water, chairs and tables, sponsor setups, building interface, wireless, network connectivity, laptops for presenters, FANTASTIC audio systems with twice-daily soundchecks, frequent notices about building information, food court availability, and a billion other things you probably didn’t notice? All that stemmed from Marni’s desk in her role as VP of operations for VON and pulvermedia. If there was a compliment I could give her and her team, she’s VON’s Whitney Hoffman, who at the end of the day just gets it done, period. No excuses, no meandering, no bullshit. It’s done when you need it to be done, and that’s all there is to it.
Now, this is not to say that other organizers didn’t contribute, because they certainly did, but I wanted to point out that these six folks went far, far beyond expectations to make PodCamp Boston 2 a success. If I ever wanted to run an events business (I don’t) or anything which required operational excellence, these people would get job offers immediately.
I’m always amused when I see someone bill themselves as a thought leader in their field (heck, my own company’s marketing department does it to me), mostly because the term thought leader is a joke. You are either a leader or you are not. It’d be like having a thought quarterback in the NFL, a thought pitcher in Fenway Park, a thought general on the battlefield. Do leaders need to think? Of course! But then they need to demonstrate the true leadership part and do.
Brilliant execution of a good plan beats no execution of a great plan every time.
My final turn of phrase on this silly term that needs to be retired: a thought leader is someone who is thinking about leading – but probably never will.
The Revocation of PodCamp Rule Four
In the beginning, there were seven rules of BarCamp.
1st Rule: You do talk/blog about BarCamp. (this later broke into two separate rules)
2nd Rule: If you want to present, you must write your topic and name in a presentation slot.
3rd Rule: Only three word intros.
4th Rule: As many presentations at a time as facilities allow for.
5th Rule: No pre-scheduled presentations, no tourists.
6th Rule: Presentations will go on as long as they have to or until they run into another presentation slot.
7th Rule: If this is your first time at BarCamp, you HAVE to present.
PodCamp Boston 1 changed a lot of these rules, as Chris Brogan and I found at least at BarCamp Boston that they either weren’t adhered to or they made people unnecessarily uncomfortable, particularly rules 5 and 7.
The rules of PodCamp evolved to:
1. All attendees must be treated equally.
2. All content must be released under Creative Commons.
3. All attendees must be allowed to participate.
4. All sessions and events must be free of charge to attend.
5. All sessions must obey the Law of 2 Feet.
6. The event must be new-media focused.
7. The financials must be fully disclosed in an open ledger.
At PodCamp Boston 2, rule 4 was revoked.
1. All attendees must be treated equally.
2. All content must be released under Creative Commons.
3. All attendees must be allowed to participate.
5. All sessions must obey the Law of 2 Feet.
6. The event must be new-media focused.
7. The financials must be fully disclosed in an open ledger.
Our reasoning for the revocation of rule 4 is based on feedback from the session on PodCamp Retrospective and Prospective: Where Do We Go From Here, as well as the hallway session on the state of new media, plus healthy discussions with folks throughout the weekend.
Some additional numbers and facts:
1,357 people registered for PodCamp Boston 2 (sponsored by VON, thank you!)
Approximately 650 attended, or 52.1% no show rate.
212 people registered for the Saturday night party.
Virtually all plus an additional 25 at the door actually attended (paying 20 cash), making for almost zero no-show rate, even with a9.99 expense coverage fee.
To give you some additional perspective, 1,036 shirts were printed (paid for by Foneshow, thank you!), as well as 1,200 name badges, 1,500 lanyards, etc. The name badges are headed straight for a recycling center; the lanyards don’t take up much space and will be stuffed in my office at the Student Loan Network. The shirts are likely to head either to Father Bill’s Day Shelter or Pine Street Inn for dispersal to the homeless.
Each of those things cost money and generated overage which has a financial and environmental impact.
Some final, more personal numbers. PodCamp Boston organization really ramped up in June of this year for me. For 3 – 5 hours per night (more on the weekends, and more as the event got closer), PodCamp Boston -was- my life. Just about everything outside of work and family took a major hit in order to gather the resources, people, and materials to make it happen. 147 days, or about 90 work-days’ time (assuming 8 hour days) to make it happen, and that’s just my time, not counting the other organizers who busted their asses to make it happen.
Why was rule 4 revoked, and what does it mean?
Rule 4 was revoked to give PodCamp organizers more freedom, more choice, and more options for how they want their events to be run, and how they want to deal with the very real and tangible costs of operating an event.
Rule 4 also gives organizers a way to encourage commitment to the events that they work relentlessly to create.
Before the firestorm really gets going, here’s what rule 4’s elimination does NOT mean:
– PodCamp organizers are not required to charge money. They are given the option to do so.
– PodCamp organizers do not have to sell tickets. A variety of commitment mechanisms have been discussed, such as a refundable deposit paid back to attendees after the event begins.
– PodCamp organizers do not have to have a set price. Something as simple as “pay what you think it’s worth, as long as it’s greater than 1 cent” might be effective.
– PodCamp does not need to become a formal conference, such as the excellent VON and Video on the Net conferences.
Rule 4’s revocation may significantly reduce the number of people who no-show for a PodCamp should organizers choose to charge money, and that’s not a bad thing at all. I’d rather sit in a small room with 100 committed, smart people and jam together than be in a convention center the size of an aircraft carrier with 1,200 people, half of whom are there because there’s nothing more exciting to do on that weekend in town.
Rule 4’s revocation is no more written in stone than the original was, either. If there’s a case where organizers of a PodCamp behave badly, Chris Brogan and I reserve the right to reinstate it.
Laura Fitton said it best in a discussion thread on CC Chapman‘s blog:
The event isn’t, and from what little I understand, never was FREE. In a way, no event ever is. It is subsidized by sponsors and by volunteer hours. You attend for free, because somebody else paid your way. Simple as that.
A final thought. BarCamp, the event by which many compare PodCamp, has in its rules many things, but no requirement that organizers make it free.
The problem posed to the community is this:
How do you reduce the number of no-shows (52.1% attendees, 10% presenters) to under, let’s say, 10%? Solutions and discussions welcome.
