So a few weeks ago, I came across the Podcamp 3 registration site. "What the hell," I thought, "I'm trying to get people to drink this Kool-Aid at work... might as well taking a huge heaping gulp myself."
Day One...
... I arrive bright and early, ready to absorb everything like a sponge. Each session I attend I begin to notice two things...
(1) I should have attended two years ago...
...and (2) I am utterly, totally, helplessly in over my head.
Not only do most of these people really know their stuff, they all seem to know one another. WHAT THE HELL IS THE INSIDE JOKE? WHY IS EVERYONE LAUGHING AND HAVING FUN???
I see others in my boat... eyes glazed, pens furiously scribbling down presenters' words as if they were handed down from on high, trying to capture every nugget of information before it floats away, never to be uttered again.
Mercifully, the breaks between sessions are long enough that my withered, cramped hand can uncontort... still, WHY THE HELL IS EVERYONE HAVING SO MUCH GODDAMN FUN? HOW DO I?
I crumple into one of the many seats scattered throughout the building... and timidly strike up a conversation with one of the denizens of happy, uber-dialed-in attendees who are clearly shaping the future of the Web 2.0 world that I can only hope to blindly slog through...
Amazingly, these social media gods do not laugh at my presence, but take the time to answer my questions. Surprisingly, they too, at some time had to cut their teeth on this technology and their experience are not unlike mine.
Riding home on the train Saturday evening I have my PCB3 Epiphany... there is no inside joke. The exuberance displayed by attendees is borne out of excitment about not only the technology itself, but the seemingly limitless applications of it in the everyday world.
Day Two... I arrive bright and early, much more willing to expose the soft underbelly of my inexperience... and have fun doing so.
My only regret... I can't attend every session... and leech off of the collective brains of my fellow podcampers more...
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