On October 17-19, PodCamp Pittsburgh 3 was held at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and surrounding hot spots.
Prior to the event, VisitPittsburgh graciously assisted the planning committee of PodCamp Pittsburgh 3 by inviting out of town speakers who are widely popular in their realm of social media to be part of a Pittsburgh media tour that began on Wednesday, October 15. This created a greater incentive for the speakers to attend the event by getting a private tour of our great city and an extended stay in town.
The media tour included meals at various local niche restaurants, tours of the city’s great museums and funky spots, a Just Ducky Tour, and participation in several of the International Festival of Firsts events held in conjunction with Pittsburgh’s 250th anniversary celebration. All of these experiences were free for the media tour participants, who had been brought into town for the soul purpose of presenting and taking part in PodCamp Pittsburgh 3.
PodCamp Pittsburgh 3 graciously took care of the media tour participants hotel stays on October 17 and 18 while VisitPittsburgh took care of everything else.
The media tour participants were a vibrant addition to PodCamp Pittsburgh 3, at least, those who chose to show up.
You’ll note media tour participant and gladiator of social media, Chris Brogan’s post about creating social media at a live un-conference here. You’ll also note Fearless Cooking’s Grace Piper’s brief mention of Pittsburgh here which was tagged with PCPGH3, the tag that all media surrounding PodCamp Pittsburgh 3 was to be tagged.
Now, I can’t judge, maybe some media tour participants had personal reasons, family emergencies, illnesses, or whatever, that caused them to miss the entire schedule of discussions, sessions, speeches, and networking that PodCamp Pittsburgh 3 provided, but I can say that it was beyond rude to let PodCamp Pittsburgh eat the bill for their hotel stays on Friday and Saturday evening.
October 28, 2008 at 9:38 pm |
Sounds like you had a really nice itinerary planned. Definitely unethical to commit, then be a no-show. Even cancelling last minute would have been better. You should publish a list of their names and black-ball them from other PodCamp-like events. Social Media Experts are a dime a dozen. I’m sure there are plenty of others that would be more appreciative of the planning committee’s efforts and actually show up.
October 28, 2008 at 10:40 pm |
I think “rude beyond belief” may be an overstatement.
However, I do think this raises one obvious issue: if we orchestrate a similar media tour next year, we’ll have to clarify what’s expected from our participants, so they know that they CAN present at PodCamp (and that we’d like them to do so) — which may have been implied but not specified in this year’s verbiage.
Everyone who took part in this year’s tour really enjoyed their time in Pittsburgh, and the media they created does a great job of showing off the city. Hopefully next year we can extend everyone’s expertise into the session rooms, too.
October 28, 2008 at 11:16 pm |
I’d have to agree with Dan on this.
Judging from your post, I take it that no prior notification was given by the participant(s) who did not show and that is wrong.
If you pay out of pocket to attend a conference (and most aren’t cheap when you factor in travel and lodging), then it’s likely that unless there’s an extreme family emergency, natural disaster, whathaveyou, – you’re obviously going to attend because you don’t want to lose out on that monetary investment. How is it any different when someone else is footing the bill?
My take is this: if you don’t want to attend, don’t commit. Flaking out doesn’t just create a potential financial problem for the organizers, but also makes them look like jerks to the rest of the crowd.
Obviously, I don’t know the full extent of the situation and the reason for the absence, but notification should have been given to the organizers promptly. If the absence wasn’t due to circumstances beyond that person’s control, then I believe the proper thing for that person to do is reimburse PodCamp Pittsburgh.
October 29, 2008 at 11:48 am |
I still can’t believe this. No call/no show situation? That is terribly unprofessional. I, like Jenn above, don’t have the full story, but to me it’s unacceptable. Were there open spots in the schedule because of it? Wow. E-mail me.
October 29, 2008 at 11:19 pm |
Thanks for the comments. I know it’s a touchy issue. Social media “experts” are, as Dan said, a dime a dozen. There are probably many other influential people we could have invited who would have provided beneficial input. Granted, we did wait too long to reach out to speakers this year, and that is something we can tackle earlier next year.