42point1

unsettling*

So, John Meadows won a very cool Flip video at Podcasters Across Borders, and this is what he did with it.  (BTW, it's not worksafe.)

Cool, eh?

*what I mean by that is that I feel very unsettled (in a good-ish way) by what happened at PAB, as if my world view has been shook up and needs to be reconstructed or deconstructed or whatever you do to build something new on the foundations of something old after the earthquake hits.

be here now

There's been an interesting discussion taking place in the lead-up to Podcasters Across Borders, sparked by Jay Moonah on a recent episode of his podcast, Media Driving, and continued on the latest edition of the Canadian Podcast Buffet.

The discussion turns around the pros and cons of the "backchannel", or of having people connected virtually as well as being in the conference room.  There are, as Jay, Bob, and Mark discussed, many different aspects to the issue.

I know that my own views on this are highly coloured by the fact that I'm not really a techie -- I don't wander around with a laptop, I don't own a lot of the tech toys that others have that serve to keep them connected to the wired world.

What I *do* have? 

Okay, I do own a laptop, an aging and limping iBook that will not be coming to PAB, mostly because it no longer seems to hold a charge, and occasionally doesn't even want to start up, even when permanently plugged into the wall.

I have a cell phone.  It is a horrible cell phone.  But it's for emergencies, and that's pretty much all I use it for.

I actually own two iPod Nanos -- one was a birthday gift, and it's what I use for podcast/music listening.  The other is connected to a voice memo thingee that allows me to record, and so far, I've been using it to record sounds and to mumble into when I go up to the farm to work on our garden plot.

But when I go to PAB in a couple of weeks time, I won't be taking anything but myself and a notebook into the conference room, because more and more in life, I've decided that works best for me is to be in the moment.  To try to take things in, to be involved in one thing at a time, to connect with the people in the room.  I travelled all the way there, why would I plug myself into the internet to take myself out of that room?

As I've said, I'm biased.  I do believe that what I have are interesting and sometimes useful tools.  But when I have to be connected to those tools at every hour of the day, they are no longer tools, they are enslavement devices.  It's not where I want to be in my life.

You may feel differently -- you may argue that we expand the conversation beyond the conference room walls -- and you won't be wrong.  But it's not the choice I can make for myself.  If I'm not in that room, taking things in right in the moment, then, for me, I might as well have saved myself the drive to Kingston and stayed home.

and since we were speaking about community

I love how I get thinking about something, and then I'm reading someone else's blog, and they're thinking about the same thing.

This morning?  I was mulling over the "Bring Da King" campaign, and then went over to see what Mark was thinking about today, and lo and behold, he's posted about it.

So, what is it? 

Podcasters Dave and Isabelle (from the Broca's Area podcast) and Scarborough Dude (from the DicksnJanes podcast) decided that it really was important that we get James Whittingham of the Regina Radio podcast to Podcasters Across Borders 2008.

Let me take a step back -- for the last two years of PAB, James has been unable to attend, but provided his own "live" coverage of the event.  It was absolutely brilliant and very, very funny (James is a very, very funny guy).  I remember saying to Rob that someone should pass around a hat and collect up the funds to bring James to PAB, and whammo -- there were Dave and Isabelle and Scarborough Dude with the idea.

As Mark noted, they're trying to collect up $1000 to cover travel and accomodation for James, and so far, they've managed to collect about $200.

Here's the thing -- they're not asking for much from each person, $10.   They'd probably happily take $5, and if enough people donated just that small amount, $5 or $10, the total amount would probably add up in no time.

I've kicked in a few bucks, and I'll probably kick in a few more, because I would really love to see James come to PAB. 

What I love about this?  It's more of that communitizing that I'm starting to harp on about.  It's about people pulling together and helping out another member of the community -- in the end, it'll benefit us all, because I'm sure that James'  actual live coverage of PAB would be even more brilliant than his virtual "live" coverage of PAB.

So, to quote Mark -- "I'm helping Bring Da King.  And you?"

(Note:  you don't have to be a podcaster to donate.  You can be a podcast listener, you can just be someone who would get a kick out of seeing if we could pull this off.  Every little bit will help.)