Podcast Hotel: OK, I\’m Baffled…

I was just chatting with fellow blogger Nancy White, who mentioned in passing, “Hey, did you know that the Podcast Hotel conference is back on, and Corante is no longer involved?”

Huh?

I checked, and it’s true. Also, apparently the focus is now mainly on the independent music scene.

I was surprised by this, since not too long ago Corante invited me to speak about women in podcasting at this event, which was originally scheduled for early Sept. in Portland and then got mysteriously postponed. I hadn’t heard a word about it since…

I’m rather bummed to find out at this late date, and indirectly, that it’s back on and Corante is out of the picture, since I’d really been looking forward to going.

And frankly, they could have used someone like me because – as Nancy pointed out – so far there are no women on the program for this event.

Hopefully they can do something to correct that glaring gender oversight ASAP. Unless perhaps the organizers don’t believe women have anything useful to say on the subject – or they don’t want to hear what we think. Or they don’t care if they create that appearance.

Very weird…

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Post meta

This entry was written by Amy Gahran and posted on August 23, 2005 at 6:15 pm and filed under Amy's Adventures. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Comments are closed, but you can leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

6 Comments so far (Add 1 more)

Yes, Alex Williams decided to go ahead with a different event (unhappily named “Podcast Hotel presents Podcast Jams”) after we at Corante decided *not* to proceed with a Corante Podcasting Hotel event in September. Note however that this is a different conference, more geared to the music scene and ‘how to’ kinds of sessions. It has *no* affiliation with Corante, as we have been struggling to make clear over the past few weeks, and is being produced and directed by Alex Williams, who is no longer working on Corante conferences.

We are planning a Corante podcasting event, most likely to be held in February 2006, that will be focused on the business aspects of podcasting. I will keep you posted as we move forward with planning that event.

[Reply]

1. Stowe Boyd on August 25th, 2005 at 7:59 am
Amy — My goodness, we’d love to have you there and participating.
It’s a different event that we are calling Podcast
Hotel Presents Podcast Jams. It’s an experiment, really an unconference format.
I’d love to talk. The event is unbalanced with no women as speakers. Thanks
for bringing the issue to the forefront. It’s an important issue to address.
Alex.

[Reply]

2. Alex Williams on August 24th, 2005 at 11:04 pm
Stowe mentioned the hotel had a firm date to go ahead with contract and there were issues with the hotel even having their renovated conference center done in time, plus more organizing nightmares. They rescheduled for February in Boston…which ought to work out better for myself as I should be podcasting by then.

Good luck on getting on a speaking roster!

[Reply]

3. Evelyn Rodriguez on August 24th, 2005 at 12:01 pm
There aren’t any women on the bill? Contact them and make a proposal.

[Reply]

4. richard on August 23rd, 2005 at 11:10 pm
I’m gonna go with Tom on this - get out there and tour it. Easier said than done, but you could pull it off, and probably do more for women in podcasting than the hotel would have done. The only addition I’d make to his ideas is to locate a woman who podcasts already at each stop, and get the community involvement jumpstarted that way.

[Reply]

5. Greg Burton on August 23rd, 2005 at 10:55 pm
Amy: It looks like they locked themselves into a real small train the trainer format, to me. If you’re looking for speaking engagements, maybe you can do better than that event. In fact, it looks like an interesting opportunity.

Let’s flesh this idea out just a little. You’re a woman, and you sound like you’re partial to advocating podcasting for women. So, just for discussion let’s start from there.

Podcast Hotel is hosting a podcasting “unconference” to teach musicians how to podcast. Musicians, by nature, tend not to have the foggiest idea how to turn a computer on, let alone develop and implement an internet strategy. At least, that’s been my personal observation over the last two years, working with SONG STORM, a site for independent musicians. So, the question arises, as to who is going to translate the schedule into language the musicians can relate to? I didn’t see any Free or Open Source (FOSS) folks there, so, that means they’re going to work with proprietary products, I’ll bet. And, their audience is a bunch of musicians that have zero dollars?

OK. Let’s move on. Why not do what musicians do best. It’s time for the Amy Podcasting Tour to hit the road. . . . Aahh, but how to do that? Well, with the Internet, it’s easy as pie. Amy, where’s your Street Team sign up? Your Digital Age Fan Club? Amy, where’s your online store (think cafepress.com) with all the podcast shows packaged for “deluxe” purchase? The podcasting merchandise? Amy, where’s the articles, papers, booklets, info, packaged for “deluxe” purchase? Back to the fan club. I’ll sign up. I’m in Charles City, Iowa. Put me in charge of setting up a conference. Walk me through the steps, coordinate my efforts with your calendar. . . . Amy, where’s your tour calendar, for folks to find where you’re going to be? . . . .
Well, enough for starters. Let me know if you want to discuss this, further. You got nothing to lose, as long as you use the internet, license your podcasts specifically for the internet, upload your podcasts to a reputable repository like, http://www.archive.org, open a storefront for free with cafepress.com, reach out to a couple of portals, make sure you’re into P2P, and let your fans help you sell you, your merchandise, and podcasting.

[Reply]

6. Tom Poe on August 23rd, 2005 at 8:39 pm