Photo credit: Wonderdawg777 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/wonderdawg777)

The Nashville PodCamp (coming up this Saturday) marks my 15th camp experience, both as a speaker and as a participant.  The past three years I’ve held privilege to attend camps all over the country, but the Nashville camps (and the southeast in general) seems to have the best handle on how to have a good time and teach a lot as well.

That said, there are some dos and don’ts I’ve picked up that can help you (both as a speaker and a listener) to get the most out of your camping experience.

1) Don’t go to every session slot.

Seriously.  Look at your nicely mapped out grid and see if you have an empty slot or two.  You don’t? Pick the session that 1) you know a lot about already or 2) that isn’t going to give you a lot of value and take it off your schedule – even if it’s mine .  Done that? Good.  Now use that slot to network in the halls, meet some new people, and get to know some of the people that make Nashville such a great city.  I mean, how can you meet new people when you’re too busy listening to people speak, right?  Feeling really frisky? Do it to one more and make it a point to meet someone new and learn about how you can work with them in your business or hobby.

2) Don’t spend all day on your phone or laptop.

Short tweets are good, but put your device down and get some face to face interaction in.  We have all year to talk to each other through Twitter and Facebook, but only a few opportunities to get some facetime in (lowercase facetime, you apple nerds).  Meet some new people, reconnect with old friends, or seek out people you’ve only talked to online – you’d be surprised how many you’ll recognize.

3) Don’t just sit there.

For the sessions you are going to still (after all, that’s what we’re here for, right?) be engaging.  Take some notes, tweet out a hashtag or two, and ask questions – there is no such thing as a stupid question, unless that question goes unasked.  Just make sure you’re paying attention, or you’ve wasted your price of admissions (…)

4) DO get there early.

There’s no better time to network than before this party gets started.  Doors open an hour before and that’s when the good swag is given out, and who doesn’t like getting free stuff?  Plus people are more likely to talk when they’re not scurrying off from one session to another, so you’ll have more chance to get a solid conversation in.

5) DO pack accordingly.

Make sure to bring a few essentials with you:

• Notepad and Pen
• Laptop / Smartphone (for notes, recording, tweeting, stalking, etc)
• Business Cards (to give out)
• Camera (to take photos and show people how much fun you’re having)
• Video Camera (if you’re speaking and can snag one, you can record your session)
• Power Strip (call me a boy scout, but I take these to *every* conference just because you never know how good or bad the power supply is)
• OPTIONAL: cell wireless card (we’ve been really privileged to have great wifi at the ‘Ranch every year, but you never know with so many people coming what will happen – best come prepared)

6) DO go to the afterparty

What? Really?  All these really fun things to talk about and I mention the afterparty?  Well, why not?  All the sessions are over, and the REAL networking begins here.  I can’t count the number of camps I see where people miss this aspect, but if you haven’t gotten it by now, here it is: the whole point of these camps is to meet people in person and socialize/strategize. If you’re coming just to learn some information, that’s great.  But if you can meet and mingle with some of Nashville’s finest, why pass up the opportunity?  You can grab a few drinks (or even a water) and sit down to talk tech and media with people who are out there doing it and living it – who could ask for a better lesson (or a lesson after the lesson, as it were).

So, I’ll see you guys all at the ‘Ranch on Saturday.  Bring your listening ears, your social attitudes, and get ready to get there and learn some stuff (and meet a few new people while you’re at it).

I took some time today away from my normal coding duties to go out into Franklin and help with some of the clean-up efforts.  I hooked up with a crew from Rolling Hills Community Church to go out and help people.

I can’t believe just how much devastation is out there. The closer you got to the river, the worse it got.  Videos 4 and 6 have a lot of the major area video, but here are all 5 of the videos I shot.

No, don’t worry, this isn’t one of those esoteric posts to be shared by those who have lived through an event such as 9/11 or whatnot.  This is more like a literal posed question to people who I think deserve to give us an answer. ~Mitch

During and after the flood that hit Nashville in 2010, I stayed glued to WKRN (and the WKRN twitter account) to see what was going on with friends and constituents who were trapped or lost stuff in the flood.

Our local news stations (WKRN, WSMV, and NewsChannel5) did a bang up job keeping everyone informed, up to date, and out of harms way as best as possible.  I mean, when flood waters get into a 500-year flood plain (where floods MIGHT happen once every 500 years) then there’s really only so much planning can do.  But they were vigilant, their news anchors showing signs of fatigue as the night went on.

The twitter stream was on in full force too.  Citizen journalists and news team twitter accounts relayed and received information at supersonic speed.  @tndotcom, @nashvillest, @wkrn and their network of followers spread the news of what was going on to their followers (sometimes) faster than the news stations were.

So… local news stations? A+.  Local Twitter account users? A+.

National Media… White House… Where were you?

It’s 2:15pm CST on May 3rd.  We have only a little coverage on FoxNews and (for most of the morning) neither CNN nor anyone else really was having much to say about it.  Sure, right now there’s concern of the giant gulf oil spill.  I’ll give em that one. But when a bomb almost explodes in New York, a whole day ago, you report on it and go on to something that has a little more meaning.  We had record level flooding, people getting forced out of their homes, and even buildings being swept down major interstates.

Where were you?

We sent a request into the Federal government on Saturday, knowing full well we’d need it after all of the heavy downpours (and we will need help with the rebuilding efforts).

Where were you?

We’ve been watching as friends and family are displaced, sent to shelters, or even lost their lives and livelihoods as the Cumberland river swept over Nashville to levels no one has seen in nearly 80 years.

And what did we get?  2nd billing under a “Happy Birthday Singing Dog” and no word from the Commander-in-Chief.

Where were you?

I guess it’s been enough time to where I can change my question up a bit:

Where are you?

Is it because we’re a red state?  Is it because we aren’t a New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, or other major city?  Is it because we fly under the scandal radar (for the most part) and keep quiet as our citizens prosper and our startups continually do great things?

I do want to go back on a statement I keep hearing: Traditional media is dead – social media is where things are going.  I want to change it a bit:

National media is dead.  Local media, and social media, are the blend of information services we need to survive, and as long as there are television sets we will still rely on our local news teams.

Why? For the same reasons mom-and-pop businesses thrive when chain stores suffer: community.  No one knows our community like we do, and no one knows what we need to hear like the people in it.  Our local news anchors are the community – they live here, they work here, and they have stake in what goes on because its happening to them too.  Some dude sitting at a news desk 1000 miles away – He hasn’t got a clue.

So, hats off to everyone who got us through this mess – i forgot a lot of people, but you know who you are.  And for those of you outside of Nashville that don’t care: yes, we’re still here.  We’re drying out our socks and shoes (and boots) and getting ready to step up and continue to do our thing.

With you, or without you.

Because, the question still bears asking:

Where are you?

There’s a new social network in town.

At first, when I heard people talking about it from New York, Atlanta, and Austin, I really didn’t see what the big deal was.  I used Brightkite, and stopped using it because there was no real value other than telling people what I was up to (after all, I was already doing that with Twitter – why add to it with another social network?)

But, after giving it a good weekend testing, and getting my wife horribly addicted, I can safely say that foursquare is the next big thing in social networking.

“Mitch, that’s a bold statement to make,” you might say.  Well, that may be, but after using foursquare for only a weekend I’ve already found tons of utility in having businesses get themselves on the map with foursquare.

So, what is foursquare?

Here’s the short version: times during work hours don’t count, but anytime after and on the weekend you can visit locations and “check-in”.  It will show you who else using foursquare has checked in, can alert you when your friends check in to different places (so you can meet up with them), and will even award people a “mayor” title for being a frequenter.  There are also badges, and more features coming to award people for being adventurous (and punish people for being overly habitual).

(People also put their own workplaces on foursquare… after all, who wouldn’t want to be the mayor of their job, yes?)

Let’s back up one second, though.  It displays who on foursquare is your potential number one customer.  It’s like every business now has an opportunity to give back to those who support them.

So, what’s the point if I run a small business?

What kind of giving back?  What about giving anyone who checks in a dollar off of one drink?  Small price to pay for people to advertise their favorite bar to their friends (and potentially get them to meet up with you and buy more drinks!).  Are you the mayor?  Congratulations!  You get a few free drinks!  If I ended up getting free drinks from a business just because I went there a lot (and talked about it on foursquare) you can bet I’d be going back more than a few times.

There are a few businesses on the West Coast taking advantage of foursquare to give out promotions and specials (the mayor drinking free special is ripped straight from the headlines of the foursquare blog).  But, even though the site is new (and lots of other features are coming), I think there’s a huge potential for businesses to jump on board early and get their name out as fresh, innovative supporters of a fun new way to socialize with friends.

OK, but what if I’m a customer?  What’s the big draw?

Meta-gaming.

Earning achievements for doing stuff that you do normally (going out to clubs, coffee shops, shopping, stores, etc).  The XBox Live has made meta-gaming one of the most addictive aspects of the games.  There are blogs dedicated to what games have the easiest achievements and how to earn points to boost your gamer score.

But what if you could earn a badge for going to 5 different spots in one night? (That’s the “Crunked” badge for those of you curious as to the existence of such a badge).  Or for hitting 10 different locations (“Adventurous”)?  It takes 10 seconds to check in (more if you need to add the venue, but not that much more) and you’re in.

And you get stats every week to look at your patterns.  Who wouldn’t like to know just how habitual they can (or can’t) be?

Foursquare is still relatively new, but I think that if enough businesses take the small step (aka, mention on a flyer, on Facebook, on Twitter, or to their customers) that it could really take off and go places. Who wouldn’t pay a dollar for a free advertisement to their customer’s friends?  Who wouldn’t give away a few drinks one night to the mayor (and make a big deal out of it) to get lots of great photos of people having fun and get their customers talking about it for weeks?

I had the lovely privilege of meeting Chris Brogan (ladies man, man’s man, man about town… wait, no… super awesome top 150 blogger and marketing guy) today at the Author’s Way event in Nashville this morning.  If you didn’t get to check it out, the live feed will be on a DVD available for purchase, but to sum it up, Chris talked about his new book “Trust Agents” and how important it is to utilize new media technologies to leverage what people say about you, good or bad.  They’re talking about you – whether you are talking with them or not.

Chris is an amazing speaker, and a down to earth guy (something I find a rare trait in Social Media people), but his message is one of the most relevant I’ve heard.  I’m glad I got a copy of the book – now if I can find time to read it in the busy schedule, it’ll be even better

Thanks again for coming to Nashville, Chris – we really enjoyed having you, and hopefully you can stay more than 27 hours next time!