Brainchild of formidable online community developer Chris Brogan and fellow Chris, Chris Penn of Financial Aid Podcast – Podcamp has blossomed in all sorts of places around our planet where there are communities flourishing around new media.

There are 7 rules that help form the framework of a Podcamp:

1. All attendees must be treated equally. Everyone is a rockstar.
2. All content created must be released under a Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
3. All attendees must be allowed to participate. (subject to limitations of physical space, of course)
4. All sessions and events must be free of charge to attend.
5. All sessions must obey the Law of 2 Feet – if you’re not getting what you want out of the session, you can and should walk out and do something else. It’s not like you have to get your money’s worth!
6. The event must be new-media focused – blogging, podcasting, video on the net.
7. The financials of a PodCamp must be fully disclosed in an open ledger,except for any donor/sponsor who wishes to remain anonymous.

I’m helping Mr Podcast ZA – the wonderful Glen Verran of the ZA Show to get South Africa’s first PodCamp rocking. It’s an unconference like Barcamp. Which means that it’s FREEE – content, venue, equipment, T-shirts, foodies and all manner of good things are sponsored and shared by those who come to the conference.

We have a few adored sponsors – Zoopy.com (again! – is there no end to their community support? thank you guys x) picking up the bill for the venue & name tags. Henk Kleynhans’ Skyrove (you know I’m a fan!) hooking us up with free wi-fi, prolific podcaster Nico Baird will be shipping in a dataprojector & snacks P-:, T-shirt giveaways from Rudra and Keyjam hooking up the coffee (thank heavens – no tech event would be complete without caffeine!)

There are a couple more sponsorship opportunities (Apple where are you?! Media24? we know you have podcampers coming) – jump in and support the growth of the New Media community while it’s a baby here. It’s a wonderful marketing and networking opportunity, especially at these playful educational gatherings: to speak to the content-creators and experimenters. We’d love someone to take care of AV, bring some fun equipment to play on, bring/sponsor lunch or.. offer some fabulous fun prizes :-D

Remember that collaboration is what makes our unconferences magic.If you’re in Cape Town & love to know more about creating your own content online (especially but not exclusively podcasting) come join the fun.

Register for Podcamp here. If you want to speak, share tools/tips, help with logistics on the day, bring a flipchart or post-its, or sponsor some aspect to make the day more fun – you will get huge respect, link-love and connect in with a some of the best & brightest & bravest in SA’s tech community.

Wiki: http://podcampcapetown.pbwiki.com
Blog: http://podcampcapetown.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=6472716436

Join us at Podcamp & grab ideas to give voice to your genius/ rockstar/ superhero >>