Hoverboots Not Required

What does one pack when attending a “Podcamp” in the year 2010? Shiny silver spaceboots? Freeze-dried chipped beef? A vacuum-sealed packet of Tang?

Well, all of the above, if one is so inclined. But the Podcamp I’m referring to, despite the spacey-sounding name (“Open the pod bay door, Hal”), doesn’t actually take place in zero gravity, and you don’t really need to bring anything but yourself, your curiosity, and maybe a few pithy PowerPoint slides.

Podcamp Halifax 2010, which will be held at the Alderney Gate branch of the Halifax Public Libraries on January 24th, is an all-day “unconference” – an open, participatory, user-generated series of workshops for anyone interested in social media. Bloggers, podcasters, social networkers, and any folks who are curious about new media are encouraged not only to attend, but to create a presentation on a subject of their own choosing.

It’s sure to be an interesting day, because I can say from experience that Halifax has a pretty colourful social networking community. I follow a small army of Halifax businesspeople, community organizers, journalists, marketing professionals, artists and musicians on Twitter, and many of them are planning Podcamp presentations, on subjects ranging from “So You Want to Buy a Blogger” to “Social Media – You’re Doing it Wrong!”

Ryan Deschamps is one of the Podcamp’s organizers, and he explained to me that the event is organized according to the rules of “open space,” which follows these four basic principles: whoever comes are the right people; whatever happens is the only thing that could have; whenever it starts is the right time; and when it's over, it's over.

“There's just one law, usually referred to as the Law of Two Feet,” Deschamps told me. “‘If at any time during our time together, you find yourself in any situation where you are neither learning nor contributing, use your two feet and go somewhere else where you may learn and contribute.’ It's a self-organizing system. You're responsible for your own learning.”

That seems like a radical – and may I add, refreshing – departure from any conference I’ve ever attended. Deschamps says the open style of organization creates an ideal environment for people like himself who prefer a little more engagement with their education. “I like to have conversations. I prefer not to be in a presentation where I'm told what is right. I'd rather go head-to-head with that person; I find those kinds of things more meaningful,” he says.

Deschamps, because he is also the Alderney Gate library’s E-learning manager, has been instrumental in bringing the library onboard as a partner for this volunteer initiative. “I think the library got involved so it could show that this is a place where people can build connections. Halifax has a strong, strong online community, and I think there is a need for these people to gather so they can innovate and learn through one another,” he says.

Everyone is welcome to attend – whether they’re new to social media or they’ve been networking since the days before dogs and cats had their own Facebook pages. Participants are asked to register in advance (you can find the link via podcamphalifax.ca), and although this year’s Podcamp is already fully booked, Deschamps advises anyone who is interested to add his or her name to the waitlist, because he’s hoping to find more space.

And despite the fact that there will be no weightlessness or surly artificial intelligence, I’m looking forward to meeting many of the folks from the Halifax Twitterverse in person. I may pack my hoverboots just in case.

Twitter: My Office Water Cooler

For the past three nights in a row, I’ve been having Twitter dreams.

Seriously, in my sleep, I have been reading and sending “tweets” all night long. And the weird thing is, I have been waking up feeling really contented and happy.

In general, I’ve noticed that there’s something about Twitter that has me weirdly excited, and I haven’t been able to put my finger on it until now.

But I think it’s this: Twitter has become my personal “office culture.”

The thing is, I work alone, in a home office, and my only interactions all day long are with an ancient and gassy Labrador Retriever, and an equally old Maine Coon cat who occasionally wakes up just long enough to hork up a hairball and then fall contentedly back to sleep on the dog’s bed.

Sure, they’re a lot of fun, but I’m not ashamed to tell you: it gets pretty lonely here at times.

But now, thanks to Twitter, I’m feeling a lot less alone. All day long, I can eavesdrop on, and even take part in, conversations on just about any subject I’m interested in. And interestingly, the conversations don’t all have that trite “I’m doing my laundry” quality that Facebook status updates often have. In fact, there’s an unofficial culture among Twitterers that suggests tweets should be informative and heartfelt.

So instead of heading down to the cafeteria to chat with my co-workers about a cool video they saw on YouTube yesterday, I can hit the link that Rainn Wilson (who plays Dwight Schrute on “The Office”) sent me, and watch a clip of the most awesome trick-cyclist he’s ever seen.

And as you may have guessed, my new office friends are really interesting people – probably way more interesting than any actual people I might ever get to work with. Around the Twitter “water cooler”, I get direct access to what seems like privileged information right from the fingertips of celebrities. Ellen Degeneres tweets pictures of herself from backstage just before she goes out to do her show. Oprah tweets about how she’s enjoying her Sunday off. Martha Stewart tweets where she’s going to dinner and who she’s dining with (the other day she posted, “Dinner at the Resnick's was unbelievable - great guests: Arianna Huffington, Dustin Hoffman, Joel Silver and many others.”) First of all, who would have thought I’d be so interested in who Martha Stewart was having dinner with, and second of all, who were the fortunate “many others”?

But I am interested, and I’m totally excited when Martha tweets that she’s bored because she’s on hold with Jay Leno’s producer, or that Ryan Seacrest’s green room is actually gray. It’s just like the harmless office gossip about “So-and-So’s” new corner office… except that it’s famous people gossiping, and there’s no risk of getting caught spreading this gossip around. In fact, the spreading of these rumours, in the form of an “RT” or “Re-Tweet” is fully encouraged.

My office “clique” also includes people who work in the same profession that I do (freelance writing), people who live in the same city as I do (Halifax), and people who, oh yes – lead the country responsible for the world’s current economic woes. Yes, US President Barack Obama is on Twitter, and not only am I (and almost a million others) following him, but Barack Obama is also following ME. So who knows? Maybe he has checked out the tweets that link to my blog. Unlikely, I know; I guess he’s pretty busy and everything. Still, I have a direct connection to the President of the United States. Tell me you don’t think that’s totally cool.

And now that I have this little community of “co-workers”, I worry about them if I don’t hear from them in a while. Last week, for example, author Augusten Burroughs told us his boyfriend, Dennis, was angry at him for a late-night tweet to a doctor to get help when Dennis was sick. Then, four days passed with, well … not a tweet from Augusten. I sent him a personal note, lamenting his absence. Turns out he’d caught Dennis’ cold. I had been concerned – had the argument gotten out of hand? Was Dennis ticked off about how often (and how intimately) Augusten was tweeting? I felt a bit responsible, like you might with a cubicle-mate you’d goaded into standing up to her boyfriend’s obsessive calling. It’s not that you’re really friends, it’s just that you’ve listened to every personal encounter, and you kind of want to help. I wanted to be sure Augusten’s tweeting hadn’t gotten him into trouble. But no, he was more or less just on “sick leave” from the office.

Perhaps you’re wondering, with all this twittering, how am I actually getting any work done anymore? And you’d be right, it is a bit of a concern, especially now that there’s the TweetDeck – one big streaming screen full of tweets and Facebook status updates, in addition to columns listing any postings with the words “Halifax” or “Freelance Writing” in them. But I equate dealing with this challenge to working in an open-concept office. Sometimes you just have to tune out the conversations around you, and sometimes you need a break from work, so you join in.

Water cooler or no water cooler, at least I finally have someone besides the pets to talk to at work.