Communauto joins us as PodCamp Montreal sponsor for the first year, and we’re thrilled to have them. Founded in 1994, Communauto is one of the oldest and most important car sharing services in North America. More than 20 000 people in Quebec have already joined Communauto.

Communauto provides its members with exclusive access to its vehicles. By becoming a Communauto subscriber, you gain access to a fleet of cars that you can reserve at low cost for a half-hour, an hour, a day or longer, according to your needs. Located in the heart of your neighbourhood, the cars are available without delay, 24/7.

Communauto pays all the costs related to the normal operation of the service: vehicle purchasing, financing, registration, insurance, repairs and maintenance, as well as all administrative costs… and even gas!

Communauto in on Twitter @communauto and its iPhone application is currently in beta. Communauto 2.0, at your service!

Marketwire, a leading newswire service offering press release distribution, media contact management, multimedia, media monitoring services and other workflow solutions for public relations, investor relations, journalists and other communications professionals, helps companies navigate the social media waters. Companies can easily issue multimedia-enhanced press releases with embedded photos and video thanks to Marketwire’s flexible platform. Marketwire also offers webcasting services with 90-day archives and vanity URL.

Companies interesting in monitoring their online reputation can now access Sysomos through Marketwire. Sysomos’ two platforms, Heartbeat and MAP, provide automated sentiment, key influencer tracking, geo-demographic information, and access to real-time and historical social media conversations.

You can check Marketwire’s Sysomos Hearbeat out here:

Be sure to say hello to Chantal Jura, Media relations coordinator at Marketwire who will be attending PodCamp Montreal 2010.

And thanks, Marketwire. By financially supporting PodCamp Montreal as a Bronze sponsor, you’re making a solid investment in Montreal’s social media community.

Luckily for us, in our third year we had some generous donors come to us before we had time to reach out to them, and Rogers Communications was one of those companies who decided to reach out to us to offer Montreal’s podcasting and social media community some much appreciated support. In fact, Rogers has supported PodCamp Montreal for the last two years, which tells us that maybe we’re doing something right!

Make sure you take time to meet two representatives from Rogers who will be spending PodCamp weekend with us : Miranda Macdonald is a Social Media Specialist, while Elise Ondet is Bilingual Specialist, Monitoring & Engagement – Social Media at Rogers Communications Inc.

Between you and me …. I’d be particularly friendly with Miranda and Elise if I were you, ’cause they’re going to be bringing some pretty sweet Rogers swag with them to PodCamp. The following Rogers items will be featured in a series of special draws that will happen sometime over the course of the PodCamp Montreal weekend :

1. Rocket Mobile hotspot valued at $249.99
2. Acer Liquid E smartphone valued at $424.99
3. Two BlackBerry prize packs filled with lots of goodies

Rogers is one of many companies who have been successfully using social media to improve the customer experience. Here are some of the ways they’re doing that :

• RedBoard – launched in March 2010, this is Rogers’ official corporate blog, and a place to discuss news and ideas as well as industry issues and trends.
• Community Forums – launched at the beginning of August, these forums aim to help customers find answers to their technical questions
• You’ll find Rogers on Twitter too : @RogersBuzz is the Rogers channel for news, contests, and promotions. @RogersHelps is a Rogers customer service channel on Twitter. Some Rogers employees also have their own Twitter accounts so they can engage individually with Twitter users. You can find them @RogersElise, @RogersMiranda, @RogersMary, @RogersKeith (hi Keith!) @RogersRob (thanks for the sponsorship Rob!), among others.

So thanks Rogers! We appreciate the support.

I’m going to sign off with Rogers’ take on the famous Social Media Revolution video, with some local flavour added to the mix – You’ll find some pretty cool social media stats here, so check it out :

UPDATE: Oops! I uploaded the Social Media Revolution video instead of the Rogers Next is Now video. While you’re visiting the RogersCommInc YouTube Channel, check out this most recent video featuring the BlackBerry Torch 9800 with the engaging Miranda Macdonald.

Saturday September 11

Crédibilité(s): construction de l’autorité et de la notoriété dans les médias sociaux
Martin Lessard
L’industrie (renouvelée) de la musique : combattre le web par le web ?
Frédérick J. Fortin
Search & Social Media for Online Publishers
CT Moore
Les différentes formules de baladodiffusion au Québec
Laurent LaSalle
How to efficiently spark professional connections in the Arts
Raphael Ettore
Enfants pour l’Éducation
Félix Trépanier
Search vs. Social
Brian Rotsztein
La vie après le journalisme
Bruno Guglielminetti
Préparer un événement à l’aide des médiaux sociaux
Frédéric Harper
Revenue Generating Trends for Bloggers
Kim Vallee
Table ronde sur la production de contenu
Michel Coulombe , Felix Séguin, Jean-Francois Poulin
Twitpic, cuisine et alcool (ou @ThomaDaneau) : l’importance de l’autobranding
Thoma Daneau
The Art World Invades Social Media – How an artist and gallery owner makes the most of blogging, Facebook, and Twitter
Bettina Forget
Comment booster l’audience d’un blogue/podcast en utilisant les médias sociaux
Benoit Descary
To share or not to share. Exploration du Capital Social pour l’utilisation du marketing viral
Olivier Mermet
Going Against The Grain
Zeke
Le Dilemne Du Réseau
Sylvain Carle
Introduction à la création d’une communauté et d’une marque autour de soi
Kim Auclair

Sunday September 12

Podcasting is friggin’ bigger than Twitter. Now what?
Sylvain Grand’Maison
I want to pogne: bloguer en français ou en anglais?
Fanie Grégoire
Faut-il s’entêter à tout faire chez soi? L’expérience de communautés sans fil avec les nouveaux médias
Laurent Maisonnave et Dave G. Pelletier
Mieux comprendre ce qu’est le cyberterrorisme
Julie Horn
Questions ouvertes à Michelle Blanc
Michelle Blanc
Ces images qui mentent
Olivier Bruel
Un blogue, une entreprise?
Julia Vallelunga
Getting Students Engaged through Social Media?
Alexandre Enkerli
Aménager sa communauté
Nellie Brière
The Trust Agent
Julien Smith
WordPress pour Entreprises: Possibilités infinies?
Diane Bourque
Strategie média sociaux pour un événement de levée de fonds
Marie Annick Boisvert et Camille Desrosiers
Gérer son temps à travers les réseaux sociaux
Hicham Souilmi

By its very nature, the unconference will free you from this agony. The power of the conference is firmly placed in the hands of the attendees. An unconference is based on the principle that the sum of the expertise of the people in the audience is greater than the sum of expertise of the people on stage.

Here’s how the concept is interpreted in the case of a PodCamp :

Everyone is invited to present

If you dream of attending a conference on a specific subject that you’re passionate about, why not simply be the one to present it? You’re probably the best person to deliver a presentation on the subjects that interest you, so submit your workshop idea today.

Anyone can contribute to the discussion

An unconference speaker must be open to actively interacting with participants after an initial presentation. Traditionally, PodCamp sessions have a more rigid structure than at a BarCamp, the unconference model which inspired PodCamp. It is therefore appropriate to develop a theme or rely on visual support (ex : a projector) as needed.

Anyone can leave a workshop at anytime

Otherwise known as the “Law of Two Feet”, this principle gives total freedom to anyone who wishes to do so to leave a presentation if they lose interest or if it’s simply not for them.

Everyone is equal

Another fundamental rule of PodCamp is that “Everyone is a rockstar”. Since everyone is invited to speak at PodCamp, there is no special VIP treatment given to any speaker.

Nothing is carved in stone

PodCamp Montreal organizers try to make space available for impromptu sessions. Sometimes inspired by a workshop that has just been held, or simply a meeting of people with a shared interest, PodCamp participants tend to improvise workshops at the last minute. This practice is encouraged.

Conclusion

Even if the principle of an unconference could lead one to believe they are about to experience event anarchy, everything always unfolds in a manner that is respectful of the person having proposed and presented the subject. Since power is left in the hands of participants, the line “You Are PodCamp” is rich in meaning.

Over the last few months, I have produced a videoblog called Portrait de blogueurs (loosly translated : Bloggers Profile), whose purpose is to present new blogs and bloggers. PodCamp Montreal’s organizing team asked me to do something similar with podcasters.

These videos will be posted on PodCamp Montreal’s website once a week (depending on many factors). This project should begin as soon as we’ve finalized the theme (images, music…) and compiled a list of podcasters to feature. It goes without saying that we’ll need your help! The podcaster will need to answer these three simple questions on camera :

1. What is your podcast about?
2. Why do you produce a podcast?
3. What do you do for a living?

Are you a podcaster?

Let us know if you’re interested in being featured in a small video promoting you and your podcast. For those of you who are no podcasters, fear not, we have a different mission for you : send us names of your favorite podcasters or show them this blogpost so that they can get a hold of me directly.

Contact me by email and mention the Podcasters Profile project in your subject line. The more videos we shoot, the more interesting the concept will be and the more new podcasts there will be to discover!

We are looking for our all-important sponsors. If you’re interested in supporting PodCamp Montreal, contact Michelle Sullivan.

If you’re new to PodCamp Montreal, feel free to browse through our site. Last year’s blog posts will give you a taste of what’s in store for you in 2010.

Ed. UPDATE: Event date has been changed to September 11th and 12th 2010.

Those of you who are still beating yourselves up over having missed a great presentation might be in luck. Laurent Maisonnave and his band of merry men, Christian Aubry et Guillaume Marin, have made video archives available for your viewing pleasure. Two of the four rooms were documented, so head over to Ustream to relive the PodCamp Montreal 2009 magic.

It should tide you over until next year.

Thanks to a good number of Île sans fil members in attendance (sometimes with their families), PodCamp Montreal attendees benefitted from a free Internet WiFi access in all conference rooms.

We want to give a warm shout out to Île sans fil and its volunteers who supported us for a second consecutive year, and we hope to continue our relationship with this dynamic team for future editions.

We’d also like to give our special thanks to Eva Blue which did, once again, a fantastic job taking pictures during the event (plus some cool ones of the organizing team). You can look at her slideshow here :