Very excited, after years of hearing good things about it, to be attending BlogHer this year in San Francisco. I’ll be in town July 17-23. For a woman in social media, this conference is a big deal. It’s arguably the equivalent of SXSW for networking, empowerment, community and inspiration among all manner of women in social media.

Unfortunately PodCamp Boston is that same weekend.

PodCamps are among the most inspiring, fun and community-focused tech events I’ve ever attended. If you can go to one, you should. Though I can’t attend, I’m paying for “my” registration, to support the event and letting the organizers put that to use as they choose. Are you in Boston July 19-20? Register here.

It’s incredibly difficult for event planners to pick the best dates to suit venue, budget and attendees. That PodCamp organizers did not schedule to avoid conflict with BlogHer is a bummer, but really not that big of a deal. What made me sad was PodCamp’s response to the scheduling conflict.

When the PodCamp date was announced, I and other female PodCamp fans immediately pointed out the conflict. The response was a bit abrupt, but not unreasonable. PodCamp did not want to schedule in the fall or close to the Podcasting and New Media Expo, and the BlogHer dates had not been checked. Fair enough. But.

Once known, the conflict was not shared with other PodCamp organizers. There was no discussion or group decision made by the organizers to go ahead despite it. That sent a poor message. It implied that the organizer doesn’t “get” BlogHer’s significance or consider it important enough to merit discussion. PodCamp also never acknowledged publicly that while unfortunate, the choice had to be made not to avoid the conflict.

In our world of transparency, conversation and consensus-building, it’s important to at least listen to the concerns, decide as an organizing body, and acknowledge that a choice had to be made. An organization can address concerns like this quite easily if it chooses to. You can mention it in your blog and explain why. You can creatively embrace the conflict by encouraging remote collaboration during both events. BlogHer has a big Second Life component, why not reach out to that?

When I brought my concerns about this conflict up privately with the organizers many weeks ago, and mentioned I would blog it at some point, there was a second opportunity to creatively engage with the scheduling conflict. While my concerns were taken seriously and discussed fairly, there was still no public acknowledgement of the conflict. There was still no creative effort at outreach.

PodCamp is an awesome organization. I have close personal affection for all of the organizers, and adore what they have done for women (and men of course) in social media. They are an exemplary crew. But, gosh…

I post because I hope this can be discussed productively. I empathize with the organizing stress my friends are under. But it would be uncool of me not to raise this point merely because of my personal feelings about the team.

What are your thoughts? Does a scheduling conflict with the biggest women’s social media conference merit some public comment or creative outreach on the part of the organizers?

Social media tools can help you rock out the next event you attend. Some general ideas to get you started (add your tips in the comments)…

Know the Territory
See if anyone has set up an RSS compilation (such as Grazr) app. to compile event related news, participant blog posts, into a single stream. Spend some time with the event’s website itself, to review schedule, tips, attendees, etc. extra handy if the site has any RSS feeds.

Take a look at who else is going, per Facebook page, event website, etc. You might actually send some polite notes/connection requests (describe similarities, relevance or something to do with their interests) to those you hope to see at the event. Events are a flurry of activity and attention. If you have specific questions, contact the individual/s in advance so that you’re not surprising them. Try to see meeting someone from their side and keep it respectful, engaging and mutually beneficial. You’re at your best when connecting to and sharing with humans, not pitching.

Ask your friends if there is anyone in particular that you “really should meet” at the event. (note: this should be meet for a reason: something in common, etc., not meet because they’re famous or you want to extract something from them etc.). Tune in to who else is going and see if you can be helpful. Not sycophantic, just helpful. Just before Leweb3 I learned on Twitter that a friend of a friend needed an iPhone brought to France. I live near an Apple store. I was more than happy to help.

Listen!
Keep an eye on streams of commentary/community such as Twitter. Try to follow/connect mutually with folks who will be attending that you might like to meet. Subscribe (follow them or use RSS from their profile pages) to the feeds of others who will be there, so you can see at a glance what is going on as the event unfolds. You can go to www.summize.com or www.terraminds.com, search for a term or keyword (like the conference name) and then subscribe to an RSS feed of those search results. Often the event will also have a twitter feed or keyword tags (like hash tags) to use in compiling event-related tweets. Most of this advice also applies to blog search, general search and more.

UPDATE: Very easy and efficient way to listen: go to @eventtrack, find your event, click and/or subscribe to follow along.

Speak up!
Blog about it: post that you are going and a little bit about your interests in the conference. You may get the opportunity to meet blog readers, followers, friends of friends, etc. You can also use Twitter or your blog (or social networks. or all of the above.) to ask: Who else is going? What is going on? Who wants to connect?

Go With the Flow
The best advice came from @shelisrael: go with the flow. Your plans will change. Synchronicity and serendipity will send opportunities your way. Don’t be so tied to plans that you can’t experience them fully. Don’t be afraid to invoke the “law of two feet,” that is, to move on if you are not deriving value. Try another session or hallway conversation or social group instead.

Populate your Village
Don’t just grab (and foist) business cards, find ways to loosely connect with the people you meet going forward. Leave doors open or ajar. Use a presence application or a social network to allow the contact to gradually become more known to you and to get to know you better. Read each other’s blogs, share ideas, allow the relationship to emerge organically instead of confining it to a contact management dead-end. This practice of gradually getting to know people and preserving an open line of communication is what inspired Twitter is my Village. Find a metaphor and platform that works for you.

I’ll post later this week with a follow-up on better meeting and connecting with people at events.

My good friend and social media guru Bryan Person was kind enough to host me on BlogTalkRadio yesterday, fielding questions and talking about how to do a great job presenting this weekend at PodCamp Boston 2.

From his blog:

Here’s the audio from my 58-minute conversation with Laura Fitton earlier today on BlogTalkRadio.

Laura was my guest on a show about “delivering killer presentations at PodCamp” and offered excellent advice for both first-time presenters and accomplished speakers alike. She also took several call-in questions from a listening audience that ranged between 15 and 18 for a solid hour.

Enjoy — and see you at PodCamp Boston 2 this weekend.

The show is archived at BlogTalkRadio, so please, take a listen and let me know what questions you have about your presentations!

UPDATE: I am deeply indebted to mdy for her careful notes on the show, and the excellent “key points” summary that she posted at her blog. Wow, if you want a gig writing up show notes for my speeches, you’re SO hired! She writes up detailed notes on:

• (1-to-1) Interactions can be presentations
• Be effective and useful for your audience
• Don’t lose sight of the purpose
• Stop worrying about what you’re going to say. Factor that in last. First think: who am I talking to?; What result do you want to achieve?
• Get to your room early and chat with people as they come in
• Prepare for a wide range of audience expectations
• Communications is 2-way
• Make things interactive
• De-personalize the experience of presenting
• Get the Q&A flow going
• Don’t end with Q&A
• Do not confuse the call to action with a call to buy
• Think of setting up a website around your whole presentation, so people have a place to go to continue the conversation
• One-on-one: Don’t ambush people with your 30-second pitch
• Start with the A-ha! The so what? The why do I care?
• Think about what you can control in the room
• Watching videos of your presentations
• Body Language: Walk. Smile. Care.
• Dealing with The glassy-eyed room

I’ve added in links to some articles on this blog that flesh out the principles in more detail.

While you might assume a presentations coach would be firmly on the side of the big bucks conferences, I am thrilled by the emergent world of unconferences, camps, etc. profiled by Business Week here. You have ideas, you show up, you share them. If they are good ideas, compelling presented… who’s to say what the limits are?

UPDATE:

We still love the unconference idea, but there is a gaping blind spot in the Business Week profile. Tara Hunt, the actual organizer of the Web2Open unconference in question, disappears into the wallpaper as one of “two fellow Web2Open organizers (who) stood on chairs“. As Chris Messina of Factory City (who is named in the article) puts it: We found women in tech, so why are you still not reporting about them?