Day 20: Summer camp

I'm Adam Sell and I have two months left before I leave Boston. My challenge? Do something in the city every day. Have ideas for my adventure? Send me an email.

My summers when I was younger were usually spent outdoors, but not doing anything organized. Pickup flag football games, pretend missions to the Moon on the swingset, or street-wide cops 'n' robbers events were the order of August. Sure, I had the morning-long theater camps, or an afternoon soccer camp, but I never did the sleepaway camp thing that's so romanticized among folks my age.

Well, I'm a bit older now, and "camp" doesn't come with marshmallows, swimming trunks, and ghost stories. It arrives with business cards, breakout sessions, and networking. My first camp in many years, and it's a social media camp.

Yeah, maybe it makes me a nerd, but I went to PodCamp, hosted at Harvard Medical School. It's a summit of social media (think Flickr, Twitter, Facebook) users and experts featuring two days of talking about how these technologies can provide a benefit. I was particularly interested in exploring the question of how social media can serve traditional media (think the Globe). I've kinda got a foot in both camps (see what I did there?), and at this time and at my age, sticking closely to one or the other isn't prudent. So I wanted to see what people would tell me about how to keep both feet planted. While that heavy topic can't be solved in just 48 hours, some great ideas were bandied about on how to bring those two establishments closer together.

I'll admit having been more than a little apprehensive about what I could gain from the PodCamp ordeal, but I can call it an unmitigated success. Beyond the connections with other bloggers I gathered, I also picked up a handful of tips and tricks on how to make this little project better. So while today wasn't in the same mold as Days 1-19, what I learned at summer camp should help make Days 21-60 sparkle.

And then I went home and toasted some marshmallows. I mean, c'mon.

Adam's note: I would like to thank ooVoo for paying my way for the PodCamp conference.