Happy May Day. Sylvain has organized a meeting tonight to discuss putting together a podcamp montreal:
Jeudi 1er mai / Thursday May 1st
19h (?)
Sergent-Recruteur
4801 Saint-Laurent
I can’t make it, but here are my thoughts:
For a podcasting conference in Montreal, I would like to see this question be the central theme:
-what new and exciting things can we do with podcasting content?
and:
-how can we make it happen?
-who can help?
that is, why are there no podcasts about, oh, i don’t know:
-interviews with old farmers in the gaspe about what life used to be like
-discussions with 6 year olds about the world’s problems
-weekly interviews with montreal university profs (mcgill, u de m, concordia, uqam) who are doing interesting research, whatever the field
-in-depth exploration of the health care system, with interviews with doctors, nurses, orderlies, administrators, patients, academics … ideally with interviews with the same in other countries so we can really find out how to have a better healthcare system
-weekly podcast with interviews of montreal fiction writers
-quebec history
-the immigrant experience in quebec
-a podcast dedicated to bringing quebec’s french cultural heritage to anglos; a podcast dedicated to bringing quebec anglo culture to francophones
-more audio documentaries
-podcast from the musee des beaux arts
-podcasts of various lecture series, with visiting speakers from around the world (eg who speak at mcgill etc)
-podcasts from le devoir, la presse, the quebec musician’s association
-lives of aboriginals in northern quebec
generally: how can podcasting change the world? how can it make things better? how can it build a stronger quebec? how can it create more understanding in the provice? how can it be a tool for innovation? how can we use podcasting as an instrument to become the most innovative, socially and economically vbrant population in the world?
also, generally (this is a different conference, maybe):
how is quebec going to deal with the changes that the web is bringing? if freely available information (in a broad sense) is the foundation of innovation, what does quebec need to do to remain innovative with information freely flowing on the web? what impacts will this have on language? on language policy? on culture? can we close it off? do we need to open it more? what does this mean for education, for business, for culture? how do we come to terms, as a society, with an overwhelming amount of the innovation happening on the web in english? that is, how do we come to terms with the fact that, in order to be at the leading edge of web development, and web innovation, we need to be participating in a global network/community (eg twitter) where english is (right now) the primary language? what are we doing to prepare for the change, in 20 years, when the language of innovation might be chinese? what tools should educators be building, what tools should podcasters and quebec web entrepreneurs be building?
where does podcasting fit in?
etc.