pcwm

I am stunned to contemplate that it is my fifth time attending this event, it seems incredible that It can be so many years since my first.

Here is a list of my previous experiences:

Whether you take the time to read all of these posts or not, I hope you will appreciate my fervor for this event is not exclusive. There are so many other people that I have met and befriended who feel the same way, which is really the greatest part of the function.

Podcamp WesternMA 025 (Photo credit: LesleyLambert)

Steve and Mo (Photo credit: mmpartee)

If you have never been to an un-conference event before, then you owe it to yourself to make this your first. If you have, then you owe it to yourself AND all the other attendees to come and share! These events are only as good as the people who show up and decide to open up their expertise and learning with others who crave the same learning.

Some of my favorite moments at PodCamps have been totally spontaneous and exciting because of the unplanned nature of the sessions. We won’t spend much time laboring over slide shows (although there may be some), but you can bet that we will have a lot of question and answers and open circle discussions. There will be laughter, eye-opening learning and networking of the very best kind.

We are blessed here in Western Massachusetts to have this simmering little hot bed of technology lovers (geeks) who really love to get out in the late winter and share, share, share!

SIGN UP FOR PODCAMP 5 HERE

Don’t miss out on what is truly the most special social media event of the year! You can follow the fun on Twitter with the hashtag #pcwm5. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention to you kind readers that PodCamp Western MA was a pivotal event for me since the start. I met two friends who ended up being very close friends and associates at the first event, not to mention Morriss (my boyfriend of going on 4 years) and so many special friends. I can’t wait to see who I will meet this year (hopefully YOU!).

I hope my fellow campers know that I mean Geek as the highest praise, I am a proud Geek Girl and a card carrying nerd, myself.

I am proud to say that I am a PodCamp Western MA veteran as I have attended all four of them! These aren’t the only camp/unconferences that I attend, in fact, I have been to over a dozen other camps.

That said, PodCamp Western MA (#pcwm) is always my favorite and PodCamp Western MA 4 was my favorite of them all.

I remember distinctly my first #pcwm in March of 2009. I was really nervous about going to the function and asked Morriss (who I didn’t know at all besides a few tweets) if I could go for part of the day. He assured me that I could, but cautioned me that I wouldn’t want to leave early. Well, he was (as he typically is) very right about not wanting to leave. As soon as I got acclimated to the event I knew I was home and I loved the energy and spontaneous nature of PodCamp immediately. That first year I learned more about the internet and social media in that day than I had all of the year previous.

For the second and third years of #pcwm, I was more comfortable and played a more active role in the facilitating of the event. I now had friends that I was excited to see and the energy and excitement was still there, but I didn’t feel that I was being challenged or learning quite as much. I figured that was natural, as I spend a great deal of time researching and teaching social media now, so it is harder to find topics that I don’t have a pretty good grasp on.

Source: Uploaded by user via Lesley on Pinterest

This year I went to the event with the expectation and desire to help run the day so that the new people could have an amazing experience. I kept my expectations at that role and BOY was I blown away with how wrong I was!

Session after session I was being shown new ideas and tools that I hadn’t explored in the same fashion as the presenter.

David Packman did an amazing presentation about video and podcasting that I enjoyed completely and learned a ton from. I have been doing video for over four years now and thought I had a better grasp on YouTube than I really do. His insights were powerful and I can’t wait to implement some of his great ideas.

Other sessions gleaned great thoughts and I had a fun time leading a discussion about Pinterest that opened up some people’s awareness and afforded an opportunity to hear from all types of professionals as to how they are using the platform.

Morriss and I were interviewed by Channel 40 on how we met at PodCamp and the reporter was the first one to notice that I was wearing Twitter bird earrings:

But by far, my favorite session of the day was the last session. While standing at the schedule board my good friend Christine Pilch Mancini came over and I asked her what session she was attending. None of them were resonating with either of us and she and I decided that we were going to spur of the moment create a new session. Based on her idea that it would be great to brainstorm and crowd share with other advanced social media users, we decided to call our session the Advanced Social Media Sharing session. We claimed a room and tweeted out on the #pcwm hashtag where we were and what we were doing.

Our good friend, Ron Miller, kicked off the session with a discussion on Evernote, but soon the ideas and sharing was hitting maximum speed and we were all wow-ing each other with our tips, secrets, favorite sites and expertise. This session was the core of what a PodCamp should be and was the best session I have ever attended at a camp. I firmly believe we should close every PodCamp in the future with this session.

I left the event (and went to the after party, of course!) feeling so energized and excited by the new ideas and tools that I had learned. PodCamp Western MA 4 was by far the best social media event that I have attended and I am so glad to have been there to experience the potent charge that a room full of excited learners provides.

We geek types can really have a good time talking tools!

In several weeks I will attend my favorite social media event of the year:

PodCamp Western MA.

I am stunned to contemplate that it is my fifth time attending this event, it seems incredible that It can be so many years since my first.

SIGN UP FOR PODCAMP 5 HERE

Don’t forget to add a sign up for the after party at Slainte’ in Holyoke which is sponsored by YOURS TRULY, Julianne Krutka and Ted Cassell of Park Square Realty!

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