New Media Expo (NMX), the podcasting/blogging conference usually held annually in Las Vegas, has been a big draw for new media creators and industry players for years. But NMX has been conspicuously absent from the new-media landscape in 2016. Late last year, NMX founder Rick Calvert sent out a cryptic message to NMX attendees, explaining why they hadn’t yet received their promised virtual ticket content. Since then, there’d been little contact from anyone at NMX. That silence ended today with a message posted to the NMX website, announcing the conference is officially under new management:

Dear NMX Community,

I am deeply sorry.

Last year was a difficult year, both for the NMX event and for me personally. Our co-location with the NAB show simply did not work out the way I had hoped. After the event, NMX was left in dire financial condition.

At the same time, the people I love most in the world were requiring lots of my attention.

I was overwhelmed by it all and simply shut down communication completely. While the online world we all live in is very public, I am actually a very private person, and was (and still am) not comfortable sharing these challenges publicly.

However that is not an excuse for not letting you know what was going on with NMX. I hope you can accept my apology for not communicating, and making you feel (understandably) like I didn’t care, or worse, that I intentionally didn’t deliver what you’d paid for.

Words cannot express how sorry I am for the frustration I caused you. This is especially saddening because I started this company to help content creators learn, grow, and become successful. This past year, I failed you.

As of today, I am still not able to give NMX the time and attention it deserves. Effective immediately, I will be taking a leave of absence from my duties as CEO. Obviously hindsight is twenty-twenty, but I should have done this long ago.

Patti Hosking will assume management of NMX events. Patti is a thoughtful professional, with great integrity and strength. She has my full support in working to restore our relationships and service to you. I will continue my leave of absence from my duties as CEO until such time that my private matters are resolved and I can give the business my full attention.

We are committed to this community and are putting a plan in place to provide better communication with you, and to resolve any problems this lack of communication may have caused you. This will take time, but it is in motion now.

You deserved better from me last year. Nothing is more important than regaining your trust, and I hope you will give Patti and the entire NMX team the opportunity to start regaining your trust going forward. Please contact Patti by email with any further questions.

Sincerely,

Rick Calvert

Founder & CEO,

New Media Expo – NMX

No word yet on what this change will mean for the future of the conference. But it’s clear Rick Calvert needs to step away from his leadership role at NMX. Hopefully, this move will revitalize NMX and get it back on track.

From its humble beginnings as the Podcast Expo to its recent co-location with the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas, the New Media Expo has been a cornerstone event for podcasters. NMX’s place as the premier podcast-centric event has been challenged in recent years by Podcast Movement and its offshoot regional conferences. New Media Expo 2015 took place in April and since the conference ended, there’s been very little noise coming from the NMX camp. Many in the podcasting community were beginning to wonder what was going on.

More questions than answers were created with an e-mail sent last week by New Media Expo coordinator Rick Calvert. The message was sent to those who are holders of the NMX virtual ticket:

As a VIP ticket holder you are entitled to a Virtual Ticket as part of your VIP package. Due to a series of unforeseen circumstances, the Virtual Ticket is very late this year and I feel terrible about it. I also feel awful about not effectively communicating why the Virtual Ticket is late and when it will be available for use. I’m very sorry for making you wait and not keeping you informed.

The delay in your Virtual Ticket took place for three reasons. The first reason is our website was hacked. The second is that we are short staffed. We are making changes within our team and it has left us short handed for a bit. Lastly and most importantly while all this was going on, I had several family emergencies come up in my personal life. I was overwhelmed and honestly just checked out. My staff will tell you they couldn’t reach me either. You may have noticed I have not been online in social channels or anywhere else.

It may sound strange coming from someone who has been hyper engaged online for a decade now but I am a very private person in my personal life. I didn’t want to discuss the nature of my family circumstances or cause unnecessary worry. I realize now, that I should have allowed my team to be more transparent.

I am not making excuses to hide anything or to gloss over the poor communication you experienced in asking about the virtual ticket. I am only letting you know the reasons why it has taken so long to fix this for you. As NMX and the NMX community has never experienced anything like this in the past, we hope you understand. I hope you can forgive me. I promise you that as of now I will be available to answer any and all of your questions going forward.

Again, I apologize for the delay and frustration you experienced in getting answers and I’m grateful for the opportunity to make it up to you.

No updates have been posted since this message was sent. Best wishes to Rick Calvert and his family. Hopefully, things will settle down soon and we’ll hear some good news from the New Media Expo team.

Dave Jackson, head of the podcasting track for the 2015 New Media Expo, has released his requirements for those who are interested in making a podcasting-related presentation at the conference.

Dave has broken these requirements down into several different sections. His first requirement is to know your audience:

It always starts with your target audience. We have people who have never recorded a podcast, and we have those who are approaching 10 years of podcasting. Your presentation very rarely will appeal to both sides of that fence. I would prefer a deeper dive on few subjects (with plenty of take always) then to go shallow on a larger number of topics.

Dave then reinforces that the podcasting track is about podcasting, and not things like streaming radio stations. Next, he would like your presentation to be focused. He’s not a fan of, as he puts it, “winging it:”

I see a lot of “Winging it” (especially with panels). In the case of panels it is like those group project in schools where everyone assumes the other people are going to do the work (and then nobody does). When I was on a panel with Daniel J. Lewis and Ray Ortega we met a number of times to first organize our content, and then determine who would deliver what. We timed ourselves so we had an idea if we had enough (or too much) content.

He also states in this section that he will work closely with presenters to make sure their content stays focused and on track but that he’s not going to “tell you” what to present. Also, if you presented at the last NMX, don’t bring the same presentation this time. Dave would like to see new things instead of repeat performances.

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