Have A Good Sandwich

Bootcamp Pittsburgh went down on Saturday, April 21st at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh.  If you were a person looking to learn about podcasting, blogging, or other forms of new media this was the event for you to be at.  In the true spirit of The Sandwich, this recap and recollection of the event comes a little belated.  Even better, it comes into a hybrid of shoutouts, recollections, and link whoring.  Let’s get started!

Jim has incredible taste in movies.

My boy Brian finally came out of his blogging shell.

Dawn and Alex gave me some insight into literature and podcasting.  Now I got all literate n’at, with dem cool pahdcasting types.

Kimberly Reed, Sri, and the posse from Flickr have built an amazing community that is a great reference point for getting people with similar interests together.

Chris Brogan, Pittsburgh hugger extrodinaire, is a giant amongst mild mannered new media types.  It was great to see him again, especially with the blue hat ‘o balloons.

I didn’t get a chance to talk to iJustine but she’s cool, plugged in, and better looking than me.  I gotta listen to her and Shawn on Geekriot.

I was so grateful to have excellent co-presenters in the sessions I was involved in.  I joined Cindy and Christina, members of the Pittsburgh Bloggers cabal, to give people the quick and dirty skinny on blogging.  It was fast and furious, and didn’t cover everything I think we wanted to see but I think it went very well.  John, Matthew, and myself had a slow start to our introductory Wordpress session, but it quickly picked up steam and hopefully provided a useful start to those who were in attendance.

My long “in the hopper” business, WearLocal, finally saw the light of day with a sponsorship of the event’s breakfast and a sneak preview of selected product prototypes including the beloved Parking Chair.  Sign up on the website to be alerted when we officially launch, which is targeted for the end of May.

I’ve never enjoyed being Flair-chopped quite so much as I was when the Mayhem Wrestling boys (and girl) did it.  Thanks Lunchbox!  Believe it or not, my chest was actually not red the next day.  (Note to Scott and Brian: that doesn’t give you carte blanche to do it too!)

Thanks to everyone who helped cart the leftover food down to the Wood Street shelter.  That was an awesome way to complete the event itself.

Sincere congratulations and thanks to the organizers of Bootcamp.  All of you contributed to a great event.  Justin, you’ve really brought new media awareness and helped create a wonderful Pittsburgh based community here.

Finally, I’ll close by something I mentioned to Stretch not long after the event was over.  I said that even though I’ve been a supporter of blogging and podcasting for several years, Bootcamp was the first time where I really felt like was an evangelist for new media and the incredibly positive changes it presents to social interaction, networking, and business.  I haven’t been this passionate about something like this for a very long time, and I’m just glad to be along for the ride.

(photo courtesy of Matthew)

Posted on May 9th, 2007 under Bloggers, Blogging, Pittsburgh • Tags: Bloggers, Blogging, Pittsburgh. •  Print This Post •  Email This Post • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback