Podcamp Pittsburgh 3 was amazing and completely unlike Podcamp Boston 2 or 3. I was slightly concerned about attending as I felt that I likely didn’t know anyone there and would have to constantly break the ice but in reality I already had many connections in Pittsburgh.
The differences were vast, but mostly positive from my experiences in Boston. Somewhat intentionally and somewhat purely due to a different population in the city, the age range was much wider than in Boston. We had several senior individuals attending, who wanted to learn more and find ways to take advantage of this fast moving industry. It’s an older population here in general, but the average age was definitely closer to 40, than the likely 25 that Boston centers around. We also had a much larger openly gay demographic than we had in Boston, which was very cool and unexpected on my part. Pittsburgh also must have some great piercers because everyone had some pretty awesome piercings, kinda random… but I thought it was cool. I’m normally the only guy running around with an industrial in his ear around here, but that wasn’t anything compared to many people there.
Pittsburgh is a significantly smaller scene than Boston and has fewer ‘rockstars’. It is also significantly less commercial and professional at this point which was refreshing. Many people are doing blogs and podcasts for their own personal enjoyment and almost always on topics outside of social media/pr/etc. The attendance was about 1/3rd of Boston’s and overall much less experienced. However that doesn’t mean that they weren’t passionate or wanting to learn. The facility was nice, but the halls were a little cramped at times. The layout actually made a lot more sense than the 4 floors of madness at Boston 3, or the 3 buildings that ROFLCon spanned. I don’t think there were as many hallway discussions as I’d have liked, but the sessions and individual conversations were great.
I don’t believe that a single PR firm was there. No Shift or Topaz here. No digital firms like Crayon or NYC’s Undercurrent. Few consultants. No venture capitalists. Almost no VC backed startups. There was a cool incubator called AlphaLab (reminded me a bit in name of betahouse although quite different) Few programmers and hackers. Yet there were tons of budding bloggers and quite a few veteran Podcasters. Pittsburgh has some great podcasts! Everyone was super nice and I genuinely liked everyone that I spoke with.
I ended up speaking in four sessions, two of which were unplanned until shortly prior. My first session was a presentation that I had done at Podcamp Boston 3 on improving audio for podcasts. The second was Photography for the Blogger. Those were the ones that I had planned and scheduled ahead of time and I think they went ok. I didn’t have the attendance that I had in Boston, but thats OK and I felt some great interaction with the audience. By request I did a literally impromptu session on Virtual Worlds and Social Media since someone didn’t show up, then a session on the truth about advertising, making money and building your brand with a Blog. I don’t think either of them was great (on my part), but we had a lot of information sharing and some great ideas and conversation with me acting almost more as a moderator than a speaker.
I need to work on my speaking skills. I think I’m ok, but I could be a LOT better. Less time, a single presentation. Well practiced, better slides, and more preparation overall. I’m learning.
We went out for some drinks and had a great time. It wasn’t an insane party, but everyone had a great time. Pittsburgh has a thriving nightlife and it is very reasonably priced. I should also point out that in Pittsburgh you can get a decent house/apartment for cheaper than you could get a parking spot in Back Bay or Manhattan which is a real plus.
There is some minor advice that I’d give to Pittsburgh and attendees in general however. First of all. Tweet more!!! For the number of people in attendance the Twitter stream was a little bit quiet. I love that in Boston I can practically relive sessions via liveblogging and blow by blow tweeting from people like @mathurrell @skalik and @repcor. Not so there. Also, more media! I think I only saw two other people with SLR cameras there, and few with cameras overall. No N95/qik streaming of every minute. I actually couldn’t even find anyone with an N95. iJustine I was counting on you, but you were in Chicago! 
I was also crushed by reality to find that not everyone in the world of social media uses a Mac! Oh well. Also if everyone embraced the hallway a bit more and encouraged flash-sessions more that would be great. Really these are excessively minor complaints and I don’t think detracted from the experience overall. One thing I do feel however is excessively needed and critical is that attendees really do need to carry cards. Not enough people had cards to exchange which was really a shame.
But the real asset of Pittsburgh is its enthusiasm, energy and drive. I feel that the city is a little bit behind Boston in terms of social media and technology, but that really isn’t what’s important. They will catch up soon and the community is growing in amazing ways. The non-commercial nature of most of the people was refreshing and I think leads most people to being a bit more honest and open.
Boston’s Podcamps create a very huge and epic feeling. We constantly have the likes of Steve Garfield, Pistachio, Chris Brogan (he was at PCPGH3 and I got to spend a lot of great time with him), Chris Penn, occasionally Jeff Pulver, huge PR firms, Venture Capital out the wazoo, hordes of BU students and all of the Cambridge startup-geeks (like me) and simply amazing and awesome buildings like the Boston Convention Center and the Harvard Medical Campus. Yet, sometimes that’s a bit much and we don’t focus on the practical and pragmatic. These guys in PA don’t have to talk about authenticity and transparency because they are by their own nature. I think Pittsburgh has a lot going for it and is a pretty awesome place to be in social media.
I got a a handful of good photos (creative commons). I took some video that I’ll edit together and throw up a few places and link here. Slideshare is converting my presentations now, so I don’t have a link yet.
Looking to the future, I intend to attend Podcamp Montreal and Podcamp Harrisburg (a first for them and just getting started!).
