Enjoying PodWorks (Day1, 09-JUN-07)

In this blog I want to share my experience at Podworks (happened in Tidel park on 09-Jun-07 to 11-JUN-07). I don't know people has patient to read this big crap.., but just want to express my feeling.

As most of the software professionals, I do spent most of the weekend with my family just helping my other half with house administration work and so on. Usually weekends are quiet and dedicated to rest, but last weekend was really fantastic and was with full of activities : fun, knowledge sharing and social networking and much more.

Last week I attended Podworks in Tidel Park Chennai, It was totally fantastic and enjoyable right from starting of the event(8:45 AM Saturday) to End (6:00 PM Sunday). As like all other people I really loved and learn t more.. I just had first taste of Unconference style conference. Organizer TKF (The Knowledge Foundation) Chennai has organized the event excellently. Fully credit to the organizer exceptionally Syed and Kiruba.

I really understand the power of Unconference style Conference in this event, when I started for this event I dint know any of the 200+ attendees neither meet them or talked with them or emailed them. But after two days I just got interacted, shared my experience and learned lot with lot of participants. UnConference style proved one of the best event for networking.

Ok, now let us sink into the event. Event started with Kiruba's welcoming speech. In that he described about the pathetic condition of Podcast in Indian scenario (only less people has embraced this technology to express it when comparable to other country). Then participants went on to pour their views related to hindrance "Why People don't Podcast". This discussion went on for more than a hour. By nature of the issues raised by audience, we can observe how diversified issues are, the issue ranging from technical to non-technical and our own myths and so on.

Kiruba of TKF introduction speech

Based on the issues raised by audience, topics(in addition to previously scheduled topics) for the next two days where defined and attendees took the ownership to provide presentation to address these topics. This is one of the best part of UnConference style, where real issues faced by the attendees are taken and addressing it on the fly.

After this we had tea break and I moved to the Press conference organized by TKF. It was quite interesting and this is my first experience of press conference. It is really interesting to witness and interact with media persons. It went on for a 30 mins.

TKF guys answering press persons

In this conference few journalist attended it and they mentioned their views about blogging and podcasting. More over on next day (Sunday) Vivin Mathew of CNN-IBN channel made presentation

In this conference, lot of people from all the walks of life attended it. I was really surprised to see famous young energetic Tamil singer, RJ and TV compeer (we can see her energy in 'Vijay TV Airtel Super singer and it is junior version) Chinmayi Sripada in this conference. As this conference is related to Internet technology, I expected that she would be a just simply a silent spectator and attend the conference and be passive, but to my surprise she was one of the active blogger in the conference. She blogged live with her Apple i Mac laptop and picturing the conference with latest high end Nikon digital camera and uploading the picture in web. It is really great and surprise to see a film personally using laptop very easily, blogging and keeping update with latest Web 2.0 technologies and so on. More surprise is, she maintains her blog (more than three blog - one for just scribbling and one for photo and other one related to her songs and so on) and she updates her blog quite often.

Chinmayi with Imac

It is one of my dream to buy the I mac and Nikon (even though I don't know to use manual zoom camera) laptop and when we inquired about the price she mentioned it is more than 1.5lk+ for I mac and 75k for Nikon, I just moved to other topic after she mentioned the price :)

SIFY one of the sponsor, has made the Hall WI-Fi enabled it. As a result all the attendees with laptop where live and they got connected to Internet and where blogging lively. It was really fantastic to see many people spreading the message immediately. I dint have neither my laptop nor my digicam so dint get opportunity to blog lively or shot any picture. '

An MBA student Karthik Kanan presented his show related to "How to make Audio podcast online". I was at Press meeting so dint get chance to view his complete presentation. He mentioned that we can easily record audio online and embed this link in Wordpress and Blogger blogs. It was interesting and was surprised to see how easy to record online and provide links in our blogs.

Then we moved for lunch. Lunch session served many purpose in addition to serving lunch for stomach it proved to be good ice-breaker session. Many people introduced with each other and went on talking and sharing their ideas and knowing each other. Sponsor did a good job in lunch.

After lunch it was Chinmayi's turn.

Singer Chinmayi went on to present a topic related to handling of Mike (not a person named mike it is acoustic mike) during a show. It was nice and people who are using mike for podcast can use the tips which she mentioned. She explained about the environment in RJ cockpit and audience where very curious about the position of mike in RJ cockpit and other minute details related to her RJ role and shooted few question related to it. She answered audience very well. It looks she was very passionate about her work.

Chinmayi speech

Sridhar Rao, Vibash and Himanshu came from Bangalore to present their topic. Their topic is related to 'Tips on Blogging in Wordpress". They went on explaining about Wordpress feature and how to embed the sound and video file both in Wordpress and Blogger. I came to know that it is not possible to post JS related URL or commands in Wordpress blog. They showed demo to include youtube videos in Blog sites. Those guys explained patiently about blogging right from creating account to blogging. Due to shortage of time they wrapped their presentation quickly but they presented more than what one can do at short span of time. This guys really proved to passionate and energetic with presentation.

Himanshu,Vibash and Sridhar Rao

As beds spread in front of the stage (actually there was not stage at all), we can see after post-lunch session many people occupied the bed. Indeed when I tried to occupy the bed and I found it was houseful at that time. This is power of LUNCH :)

Power of Lunch

Sunil Nair CEO of Nautanki.tv (one of the sponsor of the event) presented his topic. His topic revolved around how to make MONEY thru blog and in content generation(not confined to blogs, some thing related to online TV). He went on explaining how a user creating content for his TV can generate revenue. He indeed showed couple of example of content provider earning good handsome money and few netizens with camcorder started professionally creating the shows for his TV based on the simple topic (mainly related to cooking, Religion and so on). Revenue is shared with them based on the number of audience viewing the show.

Sunil Nair of Nautanki.tv

It looks there are instance where viewer used to mail nautanki.tv when shows by few content provider gets delayed. It is really surprise for me to see the die hard audience for Internet TV show.

Probably there might be great potential for online TV in coming days ahead

Venkatesh Chandrasekaran of 'Schools For India' ( a NGO aims at constructing 6000 schools by the year 2020 across the country) gave his presentation. He serves as senior R & D manager in one of the top IT company. He explained idea behind SchoolForIndia foundation and requested all the enthusiastic participants to extend their help in providing the content (either audio or video podcast related to education) to SFI foundation. He has clear cut plan about how to distribute the content to the rural schools. I can really see lot of participant carried away by his social work and after end of the show many participant where interacting with him and enquiring about how they can help. I am pretty sure at lest few of the participant will definitely lend their hands. Hats of to Venkatesh and his foundation and his effort to his social cause...

Venkatesh Chandrasekaran of SchoolForIndia

Dhempe talked about the usage of podcast in corporate environment he went explaining about their company experience in using podcast inside their concern.

After this, show came to pause, first day of the event came to an end. And participant started talking with each other. Most of the enthusiast participant who wish to keep the spirits, where started heading the Beach house. Van was arranged from Tidel to Beach house and in addition to Van I can see more than 10 cars parked near Beach house. We had excellent dinner in Beach house and live music band and every one there had a fantastic time either with live band or swimming pool or both or in some other way. I can see most people where interacting with each other until early morning 2:30 AM.

Few snaps from Podworks.in