As far as years go, 2006 has been one of my very best — both personally and profesionally.
Here are 10 new-media events/developments from my life in 2006, in no particular order, that will stick with me.

1. Starting the Bryper.com blog and the New Comm Road podcast. The blog launched on April 25 and the podcast on May 31. They were the foundation for most of what follows.
2. BarCamp Boston. My very first unconference. I interviewed podcaster extraordinaire Christopher Penn for Episode 2 of NCR and met Chris Brogan. Those two would see the value of unconferences and would team up to found PodCamp (see point 4). They were nice enough to let join them in the planning.
3. Geek Dinner in New York City. I was sure that trekking down to the Big Apple on an Amtrak train (and back on a Greyhound bus) to meet Shel Holtz, Neville Hobson, and their fan club (of which I was a card-carrying member) would be well worth it, and I wasn’t disappointed. I also met Mike Bellina, who would soon be co-hosting New Comm Road with me.
4. PodCamp Boston. Chrises Brogan and Penn knew what they were doing when they hatched this baby. I was just pleased to be part of the organizing crew. What we had hoped would be a two-day unconference for 200 people turned out to be a star-studded two-day-plus event that accommodated some 350 passionate new-media enthusiasts from across the country, as well as a visitors from Canada and the UK.
5. CaseCamp Montreal. By pure coincidence, I was planning a family vacation to Canada when I found out that CaseCamp was being held there on July 4. The event was hosted by Twist Image president Mitch Joel, who has since become a good friend and mentor.
6. CaseCamp Second Life. Little did I know that, along with Kate Trgovac, C.C. Chapman, and Eli Singer, I’d be organizing a CaseCamp of my own just five months later … and in a virtual world, to boot.
7. Making new connections. Social media would mean little for me were it not for the friendships I’ve made along the way. Here are 30 of them.
8. New-media tools that make my life easier — or at least more interesting. Before 2006, I had never used Bloglines, Google Docs, LinkedIn, Feedburner, YouTube, or Second Life. Hard to imagine my online existence without them now
9. Landing at Monster. What I didn’t mention above is that I almost didn’t go to BarCamp Boston, think that it would be a little too programming-heavy for my taste. It’s a good thing I went against those instincts. BarCamp was held at the global headquarters for Monster.com, and thanks to a fortuitous meeting with Devon Biondi from Monster Labs, my resume would eventually find its way into the right hands. I wound up with a content producer job at Monster in August and will be moving into a more interactive role in 2007.
10. Consulting. Finding a voice in new media and expressing that voice has helped to secure some consulting work, which makes the bills just a little bit easier to pay.

My personal highlight, of course, was the birth of my son Amani, for whom I have a world of hopes and dreams. And now I’m going to go celebrate the end of one year and the beginning of the next with him.

Thanks again, 2006, for a most extraordinary year.

Technorati Tags: 2006, BarCamp Boston, Bryper, New Comm Road, Shel Holtz, Neville Hobson, Mike Bellina, Christopher Penn, Chris Brogan, Mitch Joel, CaseCamp, CaseCampMontreal, CaseCampSecondLife, Devon Biondi, Monster.com

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Shel’s Second Life avatar, Shel Witte, was one of the 40 members of our audience.

(Running time: 3 minutes, 10 seconds)

Technorati Tags: CaseCampSecond Life, Shel Holtz, Shel Witte

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Hosted by Bryan Person. Recorded from Boston, Massachusetts, USA and published for Tuesday, December 19, 2006.

Subscribe to the New Comm Road podcast. It’s free, and it ensures you won’t miss a single episode! Find us in the iTunes store or paste this feed into iTunes or your podcatching software of choice: http://feeds.feedburner.com/NewCommRoad

IN TODAY’S SHOW:

This New Comm Road “extra” edition features the soundtrack from the first-ever CaseCamp Second Life held on Thursday, December 14 at 6:00 Linden Time. This recording features presentations from:

1. Douglas Walker, World RockPaperScissors Society — “Viral & WOM communications for RPS Society”
2. Michael Seaton and — “Viral campaign for Scotiabank and Ottawa Senators“
3. John Wall, AccuRev — “Google search campaign for AccuRev”
4. Eli Singer — “National global-warming awareness and fundraising campaign for WWF Canada, ‘Save Our Climate’”

With the exception of John’s talk, all of the presentations include plenty of Second Life sounds — instant messages, applause, whistles, cameras snapping, etc., and I think this helps to capture the scene just that much better.

* This show can also be found on Blubrry.

YOUR FEEDBACK:

• Leave your text and audio comments below this post
• Send us audio files or text e-mails to comments-AT-NewCommRoad.com
• Leave an audio comment to this blog post
• Call us on our comment line: (206) 202-3996

Technorati Tags: New Comm Road, Bryan Person, CaseCamp Second Life, Crayonville, Douglas Walker, John Wall, Eli Singer, Michael Seaton, RockPaperScissors, Scotiabank, AccuRev, WWF Canada

LISTEN:

Running time: 1:00:19

Direct download this episode, or listen using the player below!

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With the success of CaseCamp Second Life and the speed at which the passionate new-media crowd moves and innovates, I should have seen this one coming.

Another *Camp is headed to the virtual world: PodCamp.

The unconference for podcasters and new-media enthusiasts, which began with a flourish in Boston back in September and now has spread to Canada, Germany, and Denmark, is tentatively scheduled to take place in Second Life from January 26-28, 2007 (Friday-Sunday).

The event is being organized by Lynette Young from Lynette Radio and SCRAPcast. Lynette was the person who made sure we had live streaming audio at CaseCamp on Thursday, and she’s well connected to Second Life’s thriving podcasting community.

Lynette is hoping to secure a venue for PodCamp that will accommodate far more than the 40 avatars we could allow into the Crayonville Amphitheatre last week. The bet here is that she’ll do just that.

I love being pleasantly surprised. Great way to end the week.

Technorati Tags: PodCampSL, PodCamp Second Life, CaseCampSecondLife, Lynette Young

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What a rush.

It’s some 12 hours after the inaugural CaseCamp Second Life, and I can say without any reservations that I’m pretty damn proud of what we pulled off — a marketing unconference in a 3-D virtual world. Between 35 and 40 avatars were in the Crayonville Amphitheatre for most of the evening, and several more followed the audio stream from Second Life’s U-Turn Cafe.

Impressions/observations:

* I really did lose a sense of my physical presence at my computer desk and feel like I was in the Amphitheatre. What really helped, for me, was the using the ALT key (which I only just discovered at the start of the event). Without having to even move my avatar, I was able to zoom in and around the entire scene. I took in the presentations from the speakers’ feet, behind the speaker, from high above, and while checking out the nooks and crannies of some of the more colo[u]rful avatars.

* Zooming, snapping photos, and trading IMs with other participants was thrilling, but it also meant I wasn’t able to pay as close attention to the presenations as I would have liked. Fortunately, CaseCamp founder Eli Singer captured most of the audio from the event, and I’ll be able to go back and listen more carefully over the next few days (we’ll also post to the public wiki).

* There were some technical glitches — we lost a couple of the speakers, briefly, and I couldn’t be connected to the Skype call as we had hoped — but I don’t think they detracted too much from the event.

* Most of audience stuck around until the end. That’s always a good sign.

* CaseCamp Second Life allowed us to do what none of the previous editions had — have participants from across Canada and the US, as well as countries that included the UK and India.

Don’t just take my word on the experience, though.

• Blog posts on CaseCamp Second Life
• Flickr “photos” from CaseCamp Second Life

Big thanks are owed to all of my fellow organizers — Kate Trgovac, who challenged me to make my original idea a reality; C.C. Chapman, who provided us with a space for the event and handled the moderating, decorating, and all of the technical questions that I’m glad I didn’t have to touch; and Eli Singer, CaseCamp’s founder. Lynette Young from Lynette Radio also donated her time and services to ensure we had a live audio stream.

And to the four speakers — Douglas Walker from the World RockPaperScissors Society, Michael Seaton from Scotiabank, John Wall from AccuRev, and Eli — we wouldn’t have an event without you. Thank you for sticking your necks out there!

I know we couldn’t accommodate everyone — and a large part of this is because of Second Life’s limitations — but CaseCamp Second Life was nonetheless a very impressive showing.

Can’t wait to hold the next one.

Technorati Tags: CaseCampSecond Life, CaseCamp, Crayonville, C.C. Chapman, Kate Trgovac, Lynette Radio, Eli Singer, Douglas Walker, Michael Seaton, John Wall, Bryan Person, Zeke Barber

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A little more than three days remain until we hold the inaugural CaseCamp Second Life in the Crayonville Amphitheatre.

We held our random drawing over the weekend for the 40 available non-presenting/non-organizing slots, and invitations to the “chosen ones” were sent out last night.

Just to whet your appetite … have a look at the snapshot above of Doug Hayashi (the dapper avatar in the green suit) and Zeke Barber (me) in the Amphitheatre. Each of those “CaseCamp Second Life” posters at the back will be transformed into a slide on the night of the event, and they’ll be on display behind the presenters.

Can’t wait!

Technorati Tags: CaseCampSecondLife, Crayonville, Doug Hayashi, Zeke Barber

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The inaugural CaseCamp Second Life is just 10 days away, and there’s still time left to register! We’ll be accepting registrations through 23:00 GMT this Saturday, and then we’ll hold a random drawing to select 40 participants over the weekend.

Meanwhile, Kate Trgovac from our organizing team has announced the speaking lineup for the event, and it’s a good one:

1. Douglas Walker, managing director, World RockPaperScissors Society — “Viral & WOM communications for RPS Society”
2. John Wall, marketing manager, AccuRev — “Google search campaign for AccuRev”
3. Mitch Joel, president, Twist Image — “Viral campaign for Scotiabank and Ottawa Senators“
4. Pam Davis, VP marketing, World Wildlife Fund — “National global-warming awareness and fundraising campaign, ‘Save Our Climate’”

I know John and Mitch already, and am looking forward to listening to Douglas and Pam present as well!

Technorati Tags: CaseCampSecondLife, Mitch Joel, John Wall, Douglas Walker, Pam Davis

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• From C.C. Chapman on Episode 22 of Managing the Gray. C.C. also spends time talking about building costs in Second Life.
• From Kate Trgovac.

Eli Singer, the fourth organizer and CaseCamp founder, had his Singer.to blog hacked into recently, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that he’s excited, too!

Technorati Tags: CaseCamp, CaseCampSecondLife

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The speed and cooperation of the social-media world continue to blow me away.

On October 27, I mused in a post on this blog that crayon should organize a CaseCamp in Second Life. As good fortune would have it, it didn’t take long for Kate Trgovac to respond and ask why we couldn’t start organizing the event ourselves, and then ask crayon to provide us with a hosting venue and some additional support.

Smart woman.

Well, it took a brainstorming session over Skype, the thumbs-up from crayon, one internal wiki, and several e-mail threads to settle, but today, just 19 days after my initial post, I’m proud to announce that the first-ever CaseCamp Second Life is officially a go, and will take place in the Crayonville Ampitheatre on Thursday, December 14 at 9:00PM EST (02:00 GMT December 15).

Time for marketers to share their work
CaseCamp Second Life (CCSL) will follow the model established by the “real-world” CaseCamps that have been held throughout Canada this year. CaseCamp is an unconference for marketers that was dreamed up by Toronto’s Eli Singer, and is all about “telling stories. Presenters … share case studies of their work. The goal is to create a commons for discussion, learning and networking between all participants.”

That structure very much applies here. We’re just taking the event globally by using the platform of an online virtual world.

We want presenters!
We need four (4) presenters for CCSL. We’re looking for marketers who have good stories to tell and who are prepared to tell them in Second Life. You’ll need Skype and a Second Life account to present, and we’ll help you with creating that setup if you need it.

Registering for the event
You have until December 9 to register as a participant, and it’s free!

Second Life’s server capacity requires that we cap CCSL at 40 avatars, excluding the presenters and the members of our organizing team. We are expecting that the number of registrants will easily surpass 40, meaning that we will have to employ a random drawing to finalize the participants list.

The organizers
In addition to Kate, Eli Singer and C.C. Chapman from Crayon have also jumped on board to help me organize CaseCamp Second Life. Here’s a little about each of us:

• C.C. Chapman — VP new marketing for crayon and host of the Managing the Gray podcast.
• Bryan Person — new-media evangelist, blogger, and host of the New Comm Road Podcast
• Eli Singer — CaseCamp originator
• Kate Trgovac — digital marketer and MyNameIsKate blogger

More information on the registration process and the event itself can be found at our wiki at CaseCampSecondLife.org. You can also search or subscribe to CaseCampSecondLife Technorati posts.

Much more on this event is coming soon … and can’t wait to see you in Second Life on December 14.

Technorati Tags: CaseCampSecondLife, C.C. Chapman, Kate Trgovac, Eli Singer, Bryan Person, crayon, Crayonville, Second Life, digital marketing, new marketing, unconference

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Hosted by Bryan Person. Recorded from Boston, Massachusetts, USA and published for Wednesday, November 15, 2006.

Subscribe to the New Comm Road podcast. It’s free, and it ensures you won’t miss a single episode! Find us in the iTunes store or paste this feed into iTunes or your podcatching software of choice: http://feeds.feedburner.com/NewCommRoad

IN TODAY’S SHOW:

• Podcast ID
• Voice man Lee Hopkins
• Announcement that first-ever CaseCamp Second Life will take place on Thursday, December 14, 2006
• Requests to leave us audio feedback on our comment line (number below)
• The backstory to CaseCamp Second Life
• More about the event

MUSIC:

• From GarageBand.com: Still Holding On, by Rantings of Eva

YOUR FEEDBACK:

• Leave your text and audio comments below this post
• Send us audio files or text e-mails to comments-AT-NewCommRoad.com
• Call us on our comment line: (206) 202-3996

Technorati Tags: New Comm Road, CaseCamp, CaseCampSecondLife, Second Life, crayon, Crayonville, C.C. Chapman, Bryan Person, Kate Trgovac, Eli Singer, new marketing

LISTEN:

Running time: 11 minutes, 13 seconds

Direct download this episode, or listen using the player below!

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