New Media Interchange Phoenix - or - Not another meetup!

For the purpose of this post, I'm breaking up you, the readers, into two categories. Now I abhor labels, so bear with me.

Group 1: Everyone who has a firm grasp on new and social media. You get not only the concepts, but you are actively engaged to the conversation. Sure, you want to learn more, but you're looking for advanced learnings and cutting-edge applications.

Group 2: Those who look at people who fit neatly in Group 1 and wonder either "Now that's really neato. How can I get involved?" or "Exactly what the hell are those people going on about all the time?".

Group 2, there is an event happening in Phoenix (Tempe, actually) on November the 1st that you must attend. It's geared toward you. It's a safe place to ask what you may think is a silly question. It's non-threatening, free of techno-babble that'll make your head spin, and an opportunity to learn the basic 101-level aspects of social and new media.

Group 1? As you might imagine, this isn't for you. Consider this a personal invitation to not attend. Consider it reverse elitism if you wish, but let's face it -- we can be a little intimidating for the noob. I figure the fewer of us are here, the better.

So back to Group 2: all those who want to learn about social and new media. The event is the New Media Interchange Phoenix meeting. It's actually the first ever meeting happening in Phoenix (though there was one in Sedona a few weeks back). Started by my good friend Douglas E. Welch in southern California, the New Media Interchange is... well, I'll just let Douglas explain:

I want to bring together New Media Tech folks like Flash animators, podcasters, videobloggers,etc together with creative and entertainment types like writers, actors and directors so that we can share information on producing New Media.

While there is a social element to all meetups, I want to focus on the Interchange of ideas and sharing real world, useful information that we each need to know. I imagine a “5-minute meeting” where you can ask a pressing question and provide a great resource (web site, book, person, etc) to share with the group. Then we can break up and discuss whatever we wish.

Time has yet to be decided. I am planning on holding this meeting as one of the unstructured break-out sessions during PodCampAZ

So that makes it even better: Hit the NMI meeting, then if you are so inclined, hang out the rest of the day at Podcamp AZ to learn even more. Since I have some influence on the schedule of Podcamp AZ, I'm going to work to get this as one of the very first sessions of the day, giving you a good taste of information in the event that you do want to visit some other things. Both Podcamp AZ and the NMI-P meeting will be totally free of charge. And while everyone at Podcamp AZ will be doing their best to make their talks "accessible" to all levels, we're going to make sure that the NMI-P meeting is totally accessible, friendly, non-threatening and all the other things I said above.

Wanna learn more? Start by telling us that you are coming (we use Upcoming to figure out what size of room we'll need. You'll want a free account for future use, so go ahead and register. Consider this a homework assignment.).

But back to the Group 1 folks for a minute: you can help. Tell all of the folks you know who might be interested that we're doing this. No, they won't have to hear you try and explain Twitter for the upteenth time. In fact, we won't have any "agenda" to speak of. There won't be a strict curriculum we're following -- that depends on the audience and how the conversation goes. No, we won't make everyone stand up and talk about what a noob they are. So no, YOU won't have fun... but maybe someone you know would?

And if it goes well, I'm committed to having recurring meetings much like Douglas does. No way we can get EVERYONE here on this one day, right?