PodCamp Toronto 2012: my highlights
Saturday, March 3, 2012 at 11:59AM I've been knee-deep in content strategy and digital product development for my employer since my last blog post too long ago. That's probably no excuse for not executing a proper editorial plan for my blog, but it's true what they say about the cobbler's kids.
It took an event even more inspiring than Confab2011 to get me going again: PodCamp Toronto 2012. The #PCTO2012 event was ace. It covered enough territory to satisfy people with interests as varied as mine, with sessions on everything from Pinterest (by far the topic with the most airtime) to Facebook's Open Graph to mobile startups.
GAMIFICATION
I delivered a presentation introducing gamification. Now that I spend my days developing desktop and mobile applications to promote healthy lifestyles, I'm exploring promising ways to support, inspire, and motivate people to be healthier.
Gamification From Hype to Hope v1
People asked great questions. Jonathan Laba, who rocked his presentation on the Facebook Open Graph and his concept of a semantic wallet, put this on the table: How do you take an application that's a non-game context and find the game(s) inherent or latent in the application?
Bingo.
In Seductive Interaction Design, Stephen Anderson proposes one approach to exposing opportunities for gameful design: the 5 Whys. I'm a strong believer in the power of asking "why" in product design conversations, or almost any conversation, for that matter. Throwing the trappings of a game at a poorly designed application ain't gonna cut it in user experience.
Listening + tweeting @ my gamification session, PodCamp Toronto 2012.
As Brian Cugelman (one of the most popular presenters on Saturday, and rightfully so) told me at the after-party, preparing a presentation makes you dig even deeper into a topic. Even after a steady diet of gamification study and practical application over the past several months, I'm aware that I've barely scratched the surface.
MOBILE STARTUPS
I was surprised gamification didn't come up more often at PCTO2012. When I was kicking around my presentation idea, PCTO co-organizer Connie Crosby told me that although gamification is a hot topic, it was absent from the schedule. The only people I heard talking about gamification were developers, including Bijan Vaez on the Mobile Startups in Toronto panel, moderated by Milan Gokhale. Having just returned from HIMSS 2012 the night before, I was interested in EventMobi, a B2B mobile app for event marketing that was deployed at HIMSS in Vegas this year. Bijan also touched on the B2B mobile app business model, particularly the requirement for superior customer support.
PITCHING TO REPORTERS
Pal Julia Hidy, whom I first met at PCTO2011, presented her "Pitch Fiesta" to an interested crowd of both PR pros and novices. Julia is known for pitches that succeed because she's sensitive to the needs of reporters and speaks their language. Check. Her. Out.
COOL NEW CONNECTIONS
After Julia's session, my ears pricked up when one of her audience members mentioned responsive web design. I made a beeline in that direction and met Aidan Foster of fosterinteractive, a boutique web shop in Toronto. Aidan also runs responsivedesign.ca. Small world: I saw him on Monday at the DrupalTO meeting, thanks to the encouragement of Erin Marchak in her "Hello Drupal!" session. For me, one of the gems of PCTO2012 was my new local find, Ladies Learning Code. As someone who works with developers a lot, I say people like me need to dip our toes into code at some point and get a better understanding of how our digital collaborators see the world.
SOCIAL MEDIA MADNESS
PodCamp Toronto 2012 was largely focused on social media. As "new media" has come of age, I suppose that's natural. There were a few presenters on podcasting, but PodCamp doesn't seem to be so closely tied to its roots now.
I missed a bunch of sessions that sounded interesting. I was especially sorry to have missed sessions by Dave Fleet and Rob Clark, but the schedule was packed, with 9 choices per session block on Day 1, which was especially hard on ADD types.
One of the most popular tweets of the #pcto2012 Twitter feed says, "Podcamp Toronto. Just like Social Media Week, except shorter. Just like mesh, but cheaper. Just like Third Tuesday, but longer." (by @DoctorJones). Yes, and I'm grateful to everyone involved in PodCamp Toronto.

