You are also responsible for your own learning this weekend. We run by the “Law of Two Feet” - if you find yourself in a session that is not meeting your needs, please leave and find a session or conversation that is. If you don’t see a session or conversation that you think should take place, please grab some people for a discussion, or book some time to talk about it on Sunday — there are still some time slots open. Make it happen!

Sponsor Thank You

Although the official count’s not in, more than 1,300 people registered for PodCamp Toronto. This is a free event – all because of the generous support of 27 generous sponsors who have partnered with us to help make this weekend a success. This year, we’re even introducing a Gold Sponsor lounge. Be sure to check it out on the third floor atrium.

We’d also like to take this opportunity to publicly thank the Rogers Communications Centre at Ryerson University for their continued support, specifically Brad Fortner and Jeremy Littler and their staff for giving us access to their beautiful facility, and for providing the A/V set up including the Twitter stream on the screens, livestreaming for those not able to make it in person, and recording the sessions.

Volunteer Thank you

Thank you to our excellent team of volunteers who will be on site to help you at the registration desk, at the information desk, working the cameras for the livestreaming and recording, picking up the coffee, and helping with our set up and clean up. Among many other things we will dream up for them! They help the weekend run seamlessly and we would slow to a halt without them.

New This Year

This year we will be featuring a Gold Sponsor lounge on the 3rd Floor Atrium. Please drop by to experience some of the fun surprises our sponsors have lined up for us! Feel free to use this as a place for casual conversation between sessions.

Also, drop by Roger’s recharging station where you can drop off your laptop or mobile device for recharging. It will be located in the Gold Sponsor lounge on the 3rd Floor.

PodCamp Toronto’s Mobile app for iPhone and iPod Touch is here! It features our Saturday and Sunday schedule, plus direct link to the Twitter stream. Go to m.pcto.ca to get yours!

Registration this year is on the 1st Floor, and we are now reserving the 2nd Floor space for our Information Desk. If you have a question about PodCamp Toronto 2010 or have other questions, our volunteers will give you a hand.

Food & Drink

Lunch on Saturday is on your own. You will have about an hour and a half. There is a map on the website at the bottom of the Venue page on our website with some eateries indicated. There are foodcourts upstairs and downstairs in the new mall at Dundas Square (Yonge & Dundas), for example.

We will have some coffee and tea on hand but it probably won’t be enough for everyone. Feel free to bring your own in. It will also be a good idea to bring your own refillable water bottle — let’s keep the plastic bottle waste to a minimum!

There is also a grocery store across the street from the Rogers Communication Centre (our host), for anyone who would like to buy sandwiches or drinks.

And by now, all registrants should have received an email message inviting you to our social event Saturday night. We are looking forward to seeing many of you out! If you play a musical instrument, we hope you will bring it along for our open mic/sing-along.

Livestreaming, recording & wifi

As in past years, we are setting up livestreaming feeds and will also be recording all sessions, courtesy of the folks at Ryerson University.

If you are at PodCamp in person, please be courteous and do not watch sessions in other rooms via livestream. This is for the people who cannot attend in person. Otherwise you will be using up our wifi bandwidth.

We do have wifi available this weekend. Please be mindful — we will have many people here this weekend; please don’t use high bandwidth applications so that we can keep as much access available to as many people as possible.

Sharing your content

The official hashtag for this year is #PCTO2010 - please use this for Twitter, Flickr, blogs, Delicious, and anywhere else fine social media is found.

For those taking photos, we encourage you to use Flickr rather than (or in addition to) Facebook. We have set up the Flickr Group PCTO2010 for your sharing enjoyment.

And please, PLEASE, all speakers and content creators are asked to release your work under Creative Commons so that we can all benefit from your work. It is one of your copyright options on Flickr.

Your PodCamp Toronto 2010 Organizing Team is looking forward to welcoming you this weekend!

While you are there, say hi to Mark van Tol (aka MVT) who led the charge on the planning of this event. It was a big job and we thank him for taking this on for us all to enjoy.

The PCTO Social
February 20, 2010 | The party will kick off at 6:30 till the last person leaves or they kick us out
Additional details about our secret location will be sent directly to participants shortly.

There will be games and prizes so bring your ‘A’ game!

As well if you have musical talent feel free to bring along an instrument or hop on the ‘stage’ as we will host an open mic throughout the evening.

But that’s not all that’s planned over the next few days. Many others have decides to host some gatherings tonight. We may not know everything that’s planned. Therefore, not to play favourites or miss anyone’s shindig, we wanted to give you the opportunity here to share what you have planned tonight. Use the comments area to tell us about any socials, meetups, parties and the like that you are hosting.

We asked Keith McArthur ,Senior Director of Social Media, Rogers Communications about their involvement in this year’s event:

1. Why did you sponsor PodCamp?

Social Media is all about community and PodCamp Toronto is a great opportunity for us to connect with members of the community. It’s great to see old friends and meet new people who are plugged in and engaged with what’s new in the world of social media in general and podcasting in particular. This is a great opportunity to learn how others are using social media and to use these insights to improve the way we connect and engage with our customers. We’re also happy to be providing PodCamp attendees with a place to charge their laptops and handsets. Look for me and my colleagues in our red @RogersHelps shirts.

2. What are you most looking forward to at PodCamp this year?

One of the best things about PodCamp is the variety of people who attend. There are some of the world’s leading podcasters and social media experts as well as people who are brand new to this space. There are people from major corporations, people using social media for small business and hobbyist podcasters. And everybody is both teacher and student – everybody learns from everybody else.

3. What session/speaker are you most interested in seeing?

What I like most about unconferences is that sessions aren’t vetted or juried – which means there will always be some great sessions and some stinkers. What’s fun is that the big name speakers aren’t always the ones delivering the great sessions. If I had to choose one session I’m most looking forward to, it’s the live recording of Inside PR. Terry Fallis, David Jones and Martin Waxman do a great job. Much as I hate to say it, the show’s better today than when I was a co-host.

4. For PodCamp newbies, do you have any words of advice?

1) Meet as many people as you can. 2) Take some risks in your choice of sessions. 3) Remember that most of your learning will happen outside of the sessions.

PodCamp Toronto is proud to announce Search Engine People as one of our silver sponsors for PodCamp Toronto 2010.

We asked Bob Nunn, about their involvement this year:

Why did you sponsor PodCamp?
Because it’s where the Elite Meet! In a world undergoing a media revolution THERE ARE NO EXPERTS and at open events like PodCamp the soapbox is shared so that we can learn together from different disciplines and experiences.

What are you most looking forward to at PodCamp this year?
It feels like we’ve been explaining Social Media to the masses for all of last year so looking forward to getting back to the bleeding edge and the heart of the matter.

What session/speaker are you most interested in seeing?
The Business Case for Digital and Social Media

For PodCamp newbies, do you have any words of advice?
I’m a newbie myself so I’ll apply my trued-and-true conference wisdom. Attend at least one session you never would and go up and introduce yourself to someone you’ve never met.

We asked Arun Kirupananthan, about their involvement this year:

1. Why did you sponsor PodCamp?

Sponsoring Podcamp made so much sense for us. We utilize social media on a daily basis to stay connected with members of our WebsiteSpark program and totally believe in it’s power to bring communities together. Podcamp gives us a chance to connect face-to-face with the people we hear about digitally daily!

2. What are you most looking forward to at PodCamp this year?.

We’re looking forward to hanging out with local web developers and bloggers and learning about social media best practices. We also want to challenge web developers to compete for the title of FTW! Competition this year at www.webnotwar.ca/ftw .

3. What session/speaker are you most interested in seeing?

The optimizing Wordpress for Podcast session sounds really interesting.

4. For PodCamp newbies, do you have any words of advice?

Well, in this case we’re the newbies. We’ve heard so many great things about PodCamp and look forward to it!

PodCamp Toronto is proud to announce Flight Centre as one of our silver sponsors for PodCamp Toronto 2010. Flight Centre is a leading retailer of travel products and services for the leisure and corporate markets.

We asked Gregg Tilston SEO and Social Media Manager about their involvement in this year’s event:

Why did you sponsor PodCamp?
PodCamp is such an incredible opportunity to share ideas, have great conversations, and learn. Last year was my first PodCamp Toronto and I have been fortunate to attend various camps across North America. PodCamp Toronto is such an incredible meeting of the minds and Flight Centre’s proud to support this great weekend.

What are you most looking forward to at PodCamp this year?
Catching up with friends and meeting new people. Selfishly? Getting feedback on the Flight Centre social media strategy and learning new tricks.

What session/speaker are you most interested in seeing?
Pick one? Wow, there are so many but for sure I am looking forward to Evelyn’s “Building an Online Community is not Rocket Science” session and after just losing a best friend, Adele’s “Death and Digital Legacy”.

For PodCamp newbies, do you have any words of advice?
Walk up to as many people as you can and introduce yourself.

PodCamp Toronto is proud to announce Blubrry as one of our silver sponsors for PodCamp Toronto 2010. Bluberry is a podcast community with services and tools to power your podcast! Blubrry has tools and services that help you build your audience, gain detailed statistics about your audience and provide income opportunities that will help sustain and support your media creation endeavors!

We asked Angelo Mandato Chief Information Officer about their involvement in this year’s event

Why did you sponsor PodCamp?
To support the podcasting community.

What are you most looking forward to at PodCamp this year?
Seeing all of our friends.

What session/speaker are you most interested in seeing?
As many as possible, I love to learn from others.

For PodCamp newbies, do you have any words of advice?
Meet and talk to as many people as possible.

If you have any feedback or run into any issues, please send a tweet to @johnmeadows or leave a comment on this post.

Simply browse to http://m.podcamptoronto.com to access the mobile site.

If you are using an iPhone or iPod Touch, you can add a book mark to make the site instantly available on your home screen, with the Podcamp Toronto icon (see lower right corner below):

PodCamp Toronto is proud to announce Tungle.Me as one of our silver sponsors for PodCamp Toronto 2010. Tungle.me is a personal scheduling page, which lets businesspeople publish availability, accept appointment requests, and plan meetings—making scheduling meetings easy. Using Tungle.me, podcasters can eliminate the headache and back and forth email exchange it takes to schedule guest interviews and find a time to record.

We asked Jonathan Levitt, VP of Marketing about their involvement in this year’s event:

Why did you sponsor PodCamp?
Tungle.me is a free personal scheduling application that makes it easier to schedule meetings. We’ve heard from podcasters that one of their challenges is scheduling guests on the show and finding times to record with their co-host(s). Tungle.me is perfect for busy podcasters that want to eliminate the time-consuming back-and-forth email and phone calls it takes to find a time to interview guests and schedule recordings. We wanted to be here to support this community that contributes so much time and energy for our education and entertainment.

What are you most looking forward to at PodCamp this year?
We have not attended PodCamp before so we are interested in meeting podcasters and aspiring podcasters and learning more about what happens behind the scenes in producing their podcasts. Maybe we’ll get some ideas for Tungle podcasts featuring how people use Tungle.me in their professional lives.

What session/speaker are you most interested in seeing?
Leona Hobbs’ session on “Hack Your Workflow for Productivity and Creativity” is an obvious fit for the Tungle team. We’d like to hear the live recording of Inside PR and a get chance to ask questions and be a part of the show. And, of course, having teams in Montreal, Waterloo, and Toronto, we have to hear The Montreal Burger Report.

For PodCamp newbies, do you have any words of advice?
Don’t be a wallflower – unconferences are about getting involved and going home with new ideas, connections, and knowledge. And, if you want to meet with someone at PodCamp, tungle them!

PodCamp Toronto is proud to announce Palette Public Relations as one of our silver sponsors for PodCamp Toronto 2010. Palette Public Relations is a Toronto-based PR agency that provides communications strategy and execution for a range of global and local clients. In addition to a thriving beauty and consumer goods practice, Palette has expertise in sustainability, corporate communications, social media and large-scale special events.

We asked Martin Waxman President and Co-Founder about their involvement in this year’s event:

Why did you sponsor PodCamp?
Palette PR is a sponsor of PodCamp Toronto because it’s one of the city’s best media events; a chance for the community to get together, share ideas, knowledge and information and, of course, meet your Twitter friends in person.

What are you most looking forward to at PodCamp this year?
If I can offer a plug – I’m looking forward to our live recording of Inside PR. We generally do the podcasts from our own homes on Sunday evenings and it’s really energizing to see my co-hosts in person – and to be able to talk face to face with some of our listeners and hear their reactions and points of view.

What session/speaker are you most interested in seeing?
There are actually a lot of sessions I’d like to attend. But one that particularly struck me is Death and Digital Legacy in Social Media. It may not be the most pleasant topic, but it’s a reality that we’ll all have to deal with, and as communications professionals, we should be able to provide thoughtful advice.

For PodCamp newbies, do you have any words of advice?
My advice for newbies is to get out of your comfort zone. Try to attend some sessions that you might not normally be drawn to, meet as many people as you can and then connect with them online so you can continue the relationships.