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PodCamp Perth's main day was wrapped up yesterday, with a range of presentations on various elements of the new media mix. With no space left on the schedule, I missed quite a few interesting discussions and sessions, but here's a quick wrap of the ones i managed to catch with a few of the points that caught my attention (there were many many more):

Cameron Reilly - El Commandante and Owner of TPN

Cameron, a self confessioned Rockstar and Napolean nut, started off proceedings with his facetiously titled session "Why PodCasting Is Dead In The Water". Using all the exuberance of his french revolutionary mentor (impressive for a 9.30 presentation), Cameron detailed how PodCasting has evolved and continues to grow.

- PodCasting has been through the fad phase and is now consolidating - growing steadily and sustainably.
- Adoption by mainstream media is helping to drive mass adoption.
- Media devices are now making it easier for podcasting to flourish - mobile, ipod, portable storage growth
- Commandante prediction: ipod size - over 40 Terabytes by 2016 (or somewhere in that vicinity)
- Key to successful podcasting is passion - commercialization is a byproduct
- Social media is about building communities.

Seng Mah and Michael Newby - Photographers in Perth PIP

Seng and Michael had the ominous task of following after Cameron Riley's PodCasting evangelism...which was never going to be an easy feat...they detailed how PIP had used the online community Flickr to create and nurture a successful offline community in Perth (and afar).

- Online communities can provide a safe and effective way of networking offline
- Success of the community is through ensuring its members are genuine and passionate about the subject/niche
- The convergence of online and offline has been the catalyst for strong offline opportunities
- PIP highlights how individuals can really benefit from the collective knowledge of a social community group (technical, legal, practical etc)

Duncan Riley - TechCrunch, Gooruze, Onthepod...

Duncan took stage after the PIP crew to give his take on brand management in the social media space. Rather than presenting, Duncan took the real "unconference" approach by opening up to a discussion from the outset.

- The company brand is always stronger than the individual
- His philosphy - protect your private life online (keep it separate and undisclosed)
- If you can't get the dotcom domain for your brand - seriously consider re-branding

...had to get lunch for the masses...so unfortunately...missed the majority of Duncan's discussion...

Stilgherrian - Crikey.com.au

Stilgherrian took on the current Australian election and discussed how the political parties were using (or in this case mis-using) social media.

- Political parties are still out of touch with social media and its audience
- Key parties don't understand that social media is about engaging - not broadcasting
- We're still one or two elections away from an internet driven outcome
- The value of social media for campaigning will come when generation C (raised by Nick Hodge) are the voters
- Debatable whether social media has the power to impact swinging voters yet - most people currently involved social media political conversations are the 70% who are already aligned to a party.

Leslie Nassar - ABC (Radio National) & Telstra

Leslie Nassar took center stage after Stilgherrian to give a revised presentation (his planned preso was stuck in luggage on the other side of the country) on how the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) had already embraced podcasting and what their plans were for the future - with some podcasting tech thrown in for good measure.

- The ABC were one of the first media outlets to embrace PodCasting back in the early days.
- Radio National has 300000 podcast listeners a week - 6 Terabytes
- Radio National currently has over 40 podcasts available
- ABC uses ID3 tags to include transcripts of podcasts to help with indexing and searching for content
- A new ID3 tag version is under consideration with audio meta tags - aimed at increasing accessibility

Nick Hodge - Microsoft's Professional Geek

Nick closed proceedings for the day with a discussion about his role as an evangelist at microsoft and the codes of practice that he follows as a blogger under a corporate banner.

- Microsoft now has a formal code of blogging practice for employees
- As a corporate blogger - you need to understand the consequences of your social media voice
- 70% of heat for corporate blogging mistakes comes from within the company
- To be openly critical of your company requires a corporate blogger to have an adequate level of internal credibility
- Relevance is key to corporate blogging - stay on topic
- "don't throw rocks in glass houses" applies to social media...be weary of unnecessary competitive slander

All told - PodCamp was a great success even with the usually sunny Perth, doing its best impression of Melbourne (all seasons in one day). The event highlighted that Australia is well and truly blazing a trail in the new media space with unbridled enthusiasm.

The day was finished off with a round of offline social networking @ the pub - what better way to end the day...

Pictures of PodCamp Perth can be found here.

Thanks to the sponsors who helped us pull the free event together: Microsoft, Australian Web Industry Association, Gooruze, iVinyl, PerthNorg, RadHarc

more PodCamp coverage from other blogs:

Duncan Riley

Cameron Riley

Simone Van Hatten

WolfByte

Nick Hodge