More photos in my Flickr set and from others.
Labels: blog, conferences, friends, geekery, northernvoice, photography, podcast, vancouver, web
More photos in my Flickr set and from others.
Labels: blog, conferences, friends, geekery, northernvoice, photography, podcast, vancouver, web
I love the Northern Voice conference. I've been part of it every year since it started in 2005. But while my wife Air and I were among the first to register for the conference itself this year, and while she put together one of the panels, neither of us will be attending the February 19 opening-night dinner (tickets for that go on sale tomorrow) because it's sponsored by the BC Liberal Party.
UPDATE: This has turned into an interesting discussion in the comments below, at the blogs of Jen Watkiss, Duane Storey, and Tris Hussey, and on Facebook and Twitter.
The sponsorship makes us uncomfortable. I'd like to think that we'd feel this way if it were any political party, but it's hard to know. That it is the BC Liberals, for whom neither of us has never voted, and that there is an election coming right up this spring, both add to our discomfort. When my wife mentioned the sponsorship to me, my immediate verbal reaction was a simple, "Ew."
I know almost everyone on the Northern Voice organizing committee, and I think they do a great job, but I also think that accepting this sponsorship was a poor choice, regardless of whether (or maybe especially because of) the current economic circumstances, which make sponsorships hard to find right now. And had it been a provincial or federal government ministry, or the City of Vancouver, the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Committee, or some other government organization rather than a political party, I think I would have been fine with it.
Sponsors are supposed to promote themselves, but a political party sponsorship in advance of an election feels like an attempt to buy my vote, and seems cynical, especially from a party that hasn't been at the vanguard of blogging and podcasting up to now. So Air and I will be at UBC for the main conference, but we'll skip the dinner. If there are others who feel similarly, as I expect there are, maybe some of us will go out for beer elsewhere that night.
Labels: conferences, controversy, money, northernvoice, politics
Chris Pirillo, who organized the Gnomedex conference last week, posted a fun video compiling a bunch of photos from the event. As far as I can tell, most of the photos are from my Flickr set, which is cool:
He calls it "The Beginning of Human Circuitry." The groovy technobleep soundtrack is "Icarus" from Trash80.net, and the video was assembled using Animoto.
Labels: animation, conferences, gnomedex, kriskrug, photography, pirillo, video
Photos like this one are the reason I've been using black-and-white film to take some of my pictures recently:
Labels: conferences, family, friends, gnomedex, meetup, photography
Last year there were worries that the annual Gnomedex conference in Seattle might have lost some of its mojo. This year Gnomedex got its mojo back. Several 2008 sessions, for instance, blew away my bedridden 2007 remote-video appearance, which I'd heard some people had then considered a highlight. (Yikes.)
Rather than write out a big summary (you can read what others had to say), here's what I was chatting about on Twitter before, during, and after Gnomedex 8.0 with various people. The @ links are Twitter's way of letting you target your messages to other Twitter usernames. The #Gnomedex tags are there so that search sites know that various Twitter messages ("tweets") are about Gnomedex. You can probably ignore both and still get the point:
Took a pill that can upset my stomach, didn't eat soon enough, threw up in the sink with almost no warning a few minutes later. Better now. 09:50 AM August 20, 2008
Derek had a great sleep-in in Seattle. 11:26 AM August 21, 2008
jabancroft @penmachine just asked "what the heck does ma.gnolia DO?" Sad it got to the end of the preso before that tidbit was mentioned. 10:19 AM August 22, 2008
The most inspiring speakers at #Gnomedex have a phrase in common: "...so I tried an experiment." 03:48 PM August 22, 2008
Derek is heading back to #Gnomedex. 08:39 AM August 23, 2008
@leelefever #Gnomedex Removing bullet points is easy - use no text on your slides at all. 12:28 PM August 23, 2008
Derek is pretty much all done in Seattle after #Gnomedex -- the sunny hotel buffet patio is going to turn to rain soon, so we'll head out. 12:30 PM August 24, 2008Gnomedex 2008 was a remarkable and refreshing forum of ideas, which is the best anyone could ask for. I also won a cool prize thanks to Eye-Fi and Chris and Ponzi Pirillo, and they played my Gnomedex song at the end. Yay!
P.S. You know who'd be cool to have speak next year? One of the MythBusters crew.
Labels: conferences, gnomedex, meetup, mythbusters, pirillo, seattle, travel
A fun way to spend our anniversary week is for my wife Air and me to come down to Seattle, hit the parties for Gnomedex together, and then have me attend the conference while she goes on the town.
The kids are with my parents back in Vancouver, and it sounds like they're having a good time too.
Labels: conferences, gnomedex, meetup, pirillo, seattle, travel
Today, via Twitter:
Labels: conferences, gnomedex, meetup, pirillo, seattle, travel
Every year since 2001, Chris Pirillo (and now his wife Ponzi too) has put together a strange little tech conference called Gnomedex. I've participated since Gnomedex 5.0 in 2005, although last year I had to do it by video.
What I heard afterwards is that overall, the 2007 Gnomedex 7.0 seemed to have lost a bit of its geeky focus, so Chris and Ponzi look to be working hard to regain it this year. There are sessions on photography, search engines, Mars landers, managing online relationships, and so on. Nerdy stuff, which is at it should be.
What makes Gnomedex unusual is that it's small (only a few hundred people) and runs as a single track schedule, rather than multiple simultaneous sessions, so you don't miss anything. The food and free Wi-Fi and power are as top-notch as the Pirillos can make them. The parties are good. And it attracts some of the top tech people in North America, as well as a good contingent of normal nerds like me (and our laptops).
I'm looking forward to seeing a bunch of people face-to-face for the first time in awhile—I haven't seen Chris and Ponzi in person since my wife Air, our friend KA, and I went to their wedding in late 2006, for instance. It's also my first trip out of Canada since my cancer surgery last summer. I'm glad I'm feeling well enough to go.
Now, Air and I need to get that hotel booked. The last-minute deals aren't as fantastic as I was hoping...
P.S. I also created a photo group at Flickr for those who'd like to add their pictures of the event.
Labels: conferences, geekery, gnomedex, pirillo, seattle, travel
It looks like Chris Pirillo's Gnomedex conference will take place at the end of August in Seattle again this year (the best time of year in this part of the world). I hope to be able to go—I participated but could not attend in 2007. Chris makes an interesting point in his post about how:
Positive or negative, Twitter fuels groupthink. [...] Handling 350+ special interest groups simultaneously when they have a direct line to the rest of the world is a completely new challenge.
Gnomedex is an unusual tech conference. It's smaller and less expensive than most, more broad-ranging, yet it attracts a more hard-core techie crowd than, say, Northern Voice here in Vancouver. Gnomedex has a different vibe every year, driven by whatever currents are pushing the web community at the time. Despite my absence last summer, I felt something a little off in 2007 from reports—perhaps in part because of a disconnect between that Twitter groupthink and the structure of the meeting.
Chris, Ponzi, Stuart, and crew are surely thinking of new ways to run the show in 2008. We'll see what that brings.
Labels: conferences, gnomedex, meetup, northernvoice, seattle
Here's the last batch of my photos from the Northern Voice conference:
Labels: blog, conferences, geekery, meetup, northernvoice, podcast, web
Here are my latest photos from MooseCamp, which was the first day of Northern Voice. I've also posted some wacky night pictures from the way home.
At MooseCamp I had a chance to try out a Nikon D3 camera belonging to Matt Mullenweg. It's extremely impressive, probably the most solidly built camera I've ever held. But it is freaking huge—more massive than some medium-format cameras, I think. In contrast, John Biehler's new MacBook Air is shockingly light. Hold one and you'll understand what the fuss is about.
Labels: blog, conferences, geekery, macbook, meetup, nikon, northernvoice, photography, podcast, web
It wasn't really called TikiCamp, but the Northern Voice opening tiki dinner at the Waldorf Hotel in Vancouver was a ton of fun. Here are my pictures:
More from the main event tomorrow and Saturday.
Labels: blog, conferences, food, geekery, meetup, northernvoice, photography, podcast, web
Vancouver artist Basco5 is once again designing the fabulous poster for the upcoming fourth annual Northern Voice blogging and social media conference here in town. (Last year the organizers were kind enough to give me one of Basco5's big 2007 posters, which now hangs in our bedroom.)
This year, Basco5 and the NV crew would like your input to help design the poster, so head on over to Flickr and leave a comment if you have ideas or suggestions.
I already like this year's tiki text/"squishy volcano" look.
Labels: art, conferences, design, flickr, northernvoice
I realized recently that I haven't mentioned next month's fourth annual Northern Voice blogging, podcasting, and general Internet fun-time conference here in Vancouver. It takes place just over a month from now, February 22 and 23 (a Friday and Saturday) at the UBC Forestry Sciences Centre.
If you're not normally the sort to attend geeky tech conferences (well, and if you are, for that matter), this is one you should go to, because it's friendly, cheap ($60 Cdn for two days, as opposed to thousands of dollars for some events), and fun. There are always plenty of both new bloggers and experienced types around, from all over the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere. It's well organized. Plus, the location is fantastic.
In 2005 and 2006, I both attended and spoke at Northern Voice, but in 2007 I had to miss it because of my first of many cancer surgeries. I'm planning to be there this year, but purely as an attendee who'll take lots of photos.
My wife, who went last year, is more involved this time, helping to organize the Thursday-night gala. You should sign up and come along too.
Labels: conferences, friends, geekery, northernvoice, vancouver, web
Dave Winer has a good point about why most conferences suck:
...if you want to have a truly useful conference that everyone gets something out of, structure it so that everyone has something to do at all times. Hopefully things that involve other people or the venue, if not, what's the point of going somewhere to do this stuff?
He's had a lot of interesting things to say recently, such as about Google ("...one thing they don't have in huge supply at Google is humility [...] the number one law of software, of course is Murphy's Law. And one of the big things it teaches is humility...") and how technology companies use the word open ("...they just serve someone's interest without thinking about the users' interest (at best) or counter to the users' interest (at worst)...").
Winer has been around the industry a long time. He's a controversial guy within it, but I think his experience has given him some wisdom about it too.
Labels: conferences, davewiner, google, meetup, web