From the John & Yoko suite of the Queen Elisabeth hôtel, he talks about the cool stuff that may happen at PodCamp this year.

Presenting the “PodCamp for Dummies” guide, Montreal edition. (Not that you’re a dummy. No. Really. We luv you!)

1. Sign up to participate at PodCamp Montreal. It’s free!
2. Send us your conference proposal. And yes, it has to be about social media.
3. Be patient… no… more patient… yes… that’s it… wait for the schedule to be announced (this will likely happen about 2 weeks prior to the event)
4. Party with your roomies / your girlfriend / your boyfriend when you get the confirmation that your proposal has been accepted by the organising committee. Party even if it isn’t accepted and come to PodCamp anyway. It’s worth it.
5. Tweet (or Identi.ca) like a madman / woman to tell the world that you’ll be speaking at PodCamp Montreal. Don’t forget to fit that all-important hashtag, #pcmtl, in your 140 character limit.
6. Start to panic. Now that you’ve bragged all over town (or Twitter/Identica) you’ll have to deliver the goods.
7. Prepare your presentation, which should be about 30 minutes long, leaving 15 minutes for all those questions and congratulatory remarks your talk is sure to inspire. There will be a 15 minute window between presentations so that people have time to move between rooms as needed.
8. If you want to use visual aids, you’ll need to bring your own laptop. If you’re a Mac user, you’ll also need to bring your thing-a-ma-bob (you know what I mean) so that your Mac can connect to our projectors. Each room will be equipped with a projector and a sound system.
9. If you don’t want to be filmed for our live webcast, you’ll need to let us know by email at info@pcmtl.com asap. You should know, however, that all your fans in London, Sydney and Johannesburg will be mightily disappointed.
10. All presentations are subject to live-blogging, live Tweeting / Identica-ing and sound recording by people in the room. We don’t control the animals. There might be so many flashes going off that you feel like the paparazzi has invaded PodCamp. Think about that when you’re picking out your PodCamp outfit. Remember, your mother or significant other may be watching!

Whatever you do, don’t forget to take the time to network. On top of all the great content being shared between the four walls of our conference rooms, there are fantastic discussions and passionate people to meet in the hallways and hidden corners of the PodCamp Montreal venue. Take advantage of them.

Thanks to PH Carmichæl for suggesting this blogpost.

Groupe CNW est une partie importante et essentielle des processus de reportage journalistique et financier au Canada, reconnue dans les plus importantes salles de rédaction et institutions financières en tant qu’élément essentiel de la dissémination et de la livraison d’informations d’actualité directement de leur source. Groupe CNW exploite des bureaux à Vancouver, à Calgary, à Toronto, à Ottawa et à Halifax. CNW Telbec, filiale à part entière de Groupe CNW, a ses bureaux à Montréal et à Québec.

CNW recently launched its social media press release platform. Check it out!

He also conducts Social Media Marketing Workshops for public servants (and non-profit workers) across Canada and teaches Small Business Development at Heritage College.

Numerous Canadian government departments have started to tap into the power of social media both internally and externally (i.e. CRA, DND, CATSA, DFAIT and PWGSC to name a few.) Some initiatives are starting to see success, others not so much. What is the common thread that seems to be separating success from failure? What are the main challenges?

Mike Kujawski will talk about the latest best practices and 10 strategic guidelines that you can follow to maximize your objectives and get buy-in for further social media engagement initiatives in your government organization.

Mike’s session is scheduled for Sunday afternoon at 15:00.

This session will look at a variety of podcast formats to help you explore podcasting and social media as tools for your organization (or for just you). The focus is on discouraging intimidation by connecting social media to past and ongoing social and media movements. Overcome hesitation and get inspired to begin your projects. Discussion is encouraged!

Starting saturday at 8:00 sharp just before the sessions is the social media breakfast. Free coffee, muffins & croissants.

Social media and academic life can cross-fertilize, if we let them. I’ll talk about my personal experience trying to bridge the gap between academia and the “geek crowd”.

Course blogs, lecturecasts, academic conversations online… Does it even make sense?

Alexandre’s session is scheduled on Sunday at 10:00.

Internally, as a podcamp organising committee, we sat down to discuss the possibility of following this set of “rules” in order to present PodCamp Montréal as a “next generation” event. So hat tip to Solaris, here are the 5 signs an event is 1.0 and how PodCamp Montreal intends to address each one.

You know your event is 1.0 when…

1. You have a web page but not a blog

This one is self explanatory. You are reading this from our blog now, aren’t you?

What makes a blog much more interesting than a static webpage? It’s interactive! You can react to pretty much everything by using the comment form below. And this isn’t a one way street : we’ll respond to your comment as soon as possible, as we already have done with other blogposts.

Expect to see more content, like conferences descriptions and related stuff about the event starting this week…

2. You don’t have a Twitter account for the event

Not only are we on Twitter, but we are on Identica as well, a open-source alternative to Twitter, which, incidentally, is much faster. Follow us @podcampmontreal to get the latest details about the event (we’ll obviously chat more on the actual weekend of the event). You can also know what others are think of PodCamp Montreal by tracking the #pcmtl tag. This tag, suggested by one of our participants, helps stream the conversation on both platforms.

For those of you who don’t know what microblogging is about, here’s a cool video : Twitter in Plain English.

3. You are not webcasting

Laurent Maisonnave and his colleague Christian Aubry will be streaming some of PodCamp Montreal’s sessions online. Unfortunately, we can’t webcast every session, but we’ll do what we can to ensure that people who couldn’t make it to Montreal this year get as much out of PodCamp Montreal as possible, without actually being there.

4. You did not create a community beforehand

Fortunately, the PodCamp movement helps us a big way! PodCamps have been happening all over the world for the past few years. The result is a strong community that believes in its formula.

PodCamp Montreal’s volunteer organizing committee includes people well connected with the blogging and podcasting community in Canada, and internationally as well.

5. You are having an impact on the environment

Our idea was to minimize the paper usage by not producing flyers to promote the event; we’ll probably think of something for the schedule as well, make it smaller, or to encourage people to go straight on our blog with their iPhones, iPod or Blackberry.

In conclusion, as you come to Montreal to share knowledge, you are what will make PodCamp Montreal a Web 2.0 event. The quality of the information you exchange with one another and with us will be the 2.0 reward you will offer to the PodCamp Montreal organising committee.

Check out this website for more details starting next week (yeah, there will be a whole new layout, just give us a couple of days).