Ten reasons to love new media
Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 6:06PM by Alison DeLory 
I am a happy camper. Today I attended PodCamp Halifax, "an unconference for people interested in social media, blogging, mobile, web design and all the internets in between." It's free and anyone can host a session.
The first PodCamp was held in Boston in 2006, and now they're worldwide. This was Halifax's fourth annual PodCamp event, and my third time attending. It's the only conference I go to where it's not only tolerable to use a mobile device during a session—it's encouraged. There's plenty of live tweeting, and a range of fantastic sessions you can wander between on the "law of two feet"—if something isn't working for you, walk away and go somewhere else.
I'm active in new media and surrounded by many like-minded thinkers, so I'm stumped when someone asks me what I like about it, why it's important, or most annoyingly, how it's not just a huge waste of time. To me, the benefits are obvious so I find them hard to articulate. Today at Podcamp, I got some pointers from the three sessions I attended and the fantastic keynote by Julien Smith (@julien). The next time someone asks me why I love new media, I'll tell them:
1. Friendship. I've met fantastic, inspiring and supportive people in cyberspace. Many of them are local, and I saw them in person today. My personal and professional world is richer for knowing them.
2. Instructions. You can learn how to build a house on YouTube. There's almost the entire body of human knowledge just sitting there at your fingertips. Social media helps you navigate and discover cool stuff.
3. Connections. With digital technology, connections are exponential. Remember the old shampoo commercial that went, "And she told two friends, and she told two friends, and so on, and so on...?" Social media works much the same way. You create your own media and can potentially bring it to vast audiences. This allows you to, as PodCamp speaker Rob MacArthur (@quietrevolution) said, "Find the others."
4. Big thinking. New media is for dreamers, entrepreneurs, creators, and people who want to make the impossible, possible. Did you ever think you could use a printing machine to manufacture a 3D screwdriver, or a crown for a tooth? Those things are now real. "No ideas are too crazy these days," said MacArthur. He suggests using 20/20 vision. Think 20 minutes and 20 years into the future, always.
5. Control, 6. Portability, 7. Speed. When you do things for yourself, you get to call more of the shots. Take books as an example. Traditional book publishers typically offer royalties of about 8% of sales revenue, according to presenter and author Steve Vernon (@StephenVernon). With e-books authors make about 80% of sales royalties. You can load 100 books onto your e-reader and it's never going to be any heavier. You can provide enriched content and hyperlinks, capitalize on impulse online buying, and get your content out there faster. Even this blog post will go live before the end of the Podcamp Halifax 2012 day.
Julien Smith8. Intelligence. "The ability to break down hierarchies is huge," said keynote speaker Julien Smith. It's true that there are leaders and experts within new media, many of them happy to lend advice and expertise to anyone who asks them politely. Their brains are ours for the picking (not literally, yuck!).
9. Experimentation. There is no pressure to be perfect in new media. We are all in the trenches together, trying to figure out what works and predict the next trend, said Smith. In many ways it's an equalizer, a platform that encourages risk taking. "We only learn from our failures," said Smith. "Success is a lousy teacher." He maintains you have to suck at something first before you get good at it (using drawing and swimming as examples), and be adaptable at all times.
10. Influence. According to Smith, Malcolm Gladwell, author of Tipping Point, was wrong. There is no tipping point, and no set group of influencers. Ideas are spread by regular people like you and me, with broad interests, who connect to one another. Really, in our noisy world, with so many things competing for our attention, isn't it marvelous to think that each of us has the ability to break through the noise and have our voices heard? And to listen to the interesting perspectives of others, and have real conversations?
There were many more fantastic takeaways from PodCamp today, but you really ought to sign up for one yourself. In the meantime, see you in the dynamic world of new media, on Twitter @aldelory and elsewhere.
Huge kudos and thanks to the many sponsors and organizers who make PodCamp a reality. Also to Michelle Doucette for supplying the photos in this post.
New media, digital media, social media | in Inspiration, New media
Reader Comments (6)
Nice post. I was sorry I could not be there today however I loved following along via Twitter. Seems like there was some excellent content and super takeaways for people. I love all of your points but 3, 4, 5-6-7 and 8 all stand out to me!
I was disappointed I couldn't go as well! While I didn't get a ticket as I hadn't signed up early enough, I was offered a ticket today but have the flu!!! I spent the day laying around, following #podcamphfx on twitter. NEVER will I Miss this again! Can't wait to someday meet all of the people in my social media world... who are such a wonderful support and inspiration to me.
Great wrapup Alison! Thanks for sharing... off to tell two friends about it now! :-)
Great comments on Podcamp. It's amazing how much we all seemed to take away from all the sessions today!
I loved this review. It was a nice way of reminding us what we took away. It's a little overwhelming to try to remember all the 'nuggets'!
Thanks for your comments. It can be hard to synthesize a whole day of information into a 600-word post so I'm glad you found it useful. There was so much going on, just like in the world of new media, you just have to jump in and flail around and hope you contribute in a meaningful way. I hope to see you all at PodCamp next year, or in real life before then!