Keith Shirley

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The word Podcamp for me brings up strange visions of Mork and Mindy and his spaceship. It has nothing to do with that of course but I can’t shake it.

I went to the Podcamp Ireland event yesterday (Sat 27 Sept 2008) to have a look at what people are doing in the area of social media and podcasts. The event is a very informal but very well organised conference type day that has numerous presentations and conversations running at the same time. As Krishna De said in her opening talk – you vote with your legs. If you are not as interested in something as you had hoped then you can get up and go to another session. The problem for me was that there were so many interesting things going on that I ended up in the hall moving between sessions trying to get a bit of all of them.

There are a couple of things that really caught my attention – most of them heavily influenced by my desire to apply what I’ve learned to an educational environment. I’m also playing with the idea of how social media can be put to good use helping rural businesses – so these kinds of events are fantastic inspiration for me.

Simon McGarr was the second session I attended and it really did strike a chord with me. I was worried that I might misquote what he said but I’m glad to see that he’s put his notes on his blog. What I got from it was the need to help people learn to question what it is that they are reading in the newspapers etc. Where did the information come from? Who’s doing the writing? What is influencing the way things are written? I liked that the emphasis was on making your own informed decisions and not just being cynical and thinking that the papers are full of lies etc. There was a facinating reference to research done by Conor McHugh of St. Thomas’ Senior National school in Jobstown in Tallaght where getting the students really involved in these issues had a positive influence on other classes. I’ve written before on how sceptical I am about statistics and this discussion was really an extension of that for me. I’ve even discussed how “facts” can be twisted with my own classes and use the example of how dangerous bread can be.

Darragh Doyle had a session giving advice to new bloggers and it was really great. Instead of him standing at the front preaching, he sat in a chair and facilitated a session where members of the audience talked about their own concrete experiences and passed on titbits of wisdom. It was facinating to hear the stories of people whose blogs I have been reading. I was able to add to the discussion myself – hopefully someone found it useful.

Martha Rotter did a presentation titled “Podcasting Inside the Evil Empire” about her experiences inside Microsoft. With a title like that I could not resist going and I’m very glad I did. The teaser video on her blog gives an idea of how entertaining it was. It was also very informative and I’d love to be able to rent the functionality for some companies here. It’s been about a decade since I first read about how well Siemens used their Intranet and other tools to disseminate information internally. Since then I’ve been facinated by the whole area of internal communications – especially as I really wonder how much waste there is when the same mistakes are made again and again because there is a lack of information inside a business.

There were a huge range of other sessions on the day and I wish they had all been videoed as I’d love to catch up on some of the ones I missed. My notebook is filled with ideas and websites that I need to followup on. It was also great for me to be able to help others and pass on some of my experiences or point them in the direction of people who should be able to help them.

Apologies to anyone I didn’t mention – there would be too many. Rest assured – there was not a single session that I did not gain something from.

Rollon next year and the next PodCamp.

Here’s another photo of me – proof that I was there. All the photos are on pix.ie:

I recently changed the name of this blog to practical technology. My main focus will be on software and technology that is of interest to small business users. Occasionally I’ll get sidetracked and talk about some gadgets or enterprise level solutions – either because they impress me or because they provide good examples of where the technology we are using daily can lead to. I’ll also cover some tax or funding issues as I come across them. If I’m putting in the effort to learn them for myself then I want to be able to pass that on.

Blog posts have been a little sparse here lately and that’s mainly because I’ve been really busy (although I admit I did take a weeks holiday in between). Some of the things I’m currently working on are:

• A complete redesign of the Shercom website to concentrate on managed backups
• The IIA Social Media Working Group has some deadlines coming up soon and I really want to make the most of the opportunity to contribute
• I am still preparing the groundwork for a proposal for a research masters degree
• I will be teaching IT a few hours a week at the Carlow Institute of Further Education
• I have some course material to prepare for a course in Google Adwords I’ll be giving
• I have some course material to prepare for courses in IT for small businesses that I’ll be giving
• I am helping two customer’s completly overhaul their network and IT infrastructure
• Our house build has finally started
• Occassionally I sleep

No need to fret however – I have a backlog of reviews and reports that I hope to work on soon and publish here.

Stay tuned

Keith