Northern Voice 2008

It's time to announce the Ask the Expert booth that will be set up on Saturday. (Pardon the wiki dust, we're still scheduling the exact time slots)

We've got a stellar line up of folks both attending the conference in person and dialing in via video conference to answer any questions the attendees may have. We'll be linking questions off the booth page, so all the attendees and watchers from afar can help flesh out answers to any questions people may have.

Whether it's a technical question like "is this CMS right for me?" or something like "Do you have any tips on helping my market my small business?", come by the booth and ask our experts.

Thanks to Voxant for sponsoring this and helping support the Northern Voice conference. They also want to buy you a drink on Friday, so check that link on Upcoming for details.

For the past 2 semesters I've been teaching at VFS in the Entertainment Business Management faculty. I teach 'Internet Technologies 101' and 'Internet Technologies 202'.

As a part of our final project for 'Internet Technologies 202' each of the students has been creating and maintaining their own Wordpress.com blog. With Matt coming into town, and so many awesome social media types on hand for Nothern Voice I decided what better way to toss them all into the deep end, than requiring that they all come to Northern Voice to pass my class. *evil grin*

They're a great bunch of film critics, film producers, film and tv agents, network executives, video game producers, tour managers, talent agents, event managers and they've got a bunch of awesome blogs. Check them out, say hi and take their picture at Northern Voice, and /pwease/ send them some linky love. :)

New to Vancouver or just not into figuring out the bus system? And need to get to the NV08 Opening Party? Then join me at Blenz at 508 West Hastings (at Richards, in front of SFU Harbour Centre).

• WHEN: Thursday Feb 21, 2008 at 5:15p.m.
• WHERE: Blenz Coffee at 508 West Hastings (map, pictures)
• BRING: $2.50 Cash fare (and another $2.50 to get back)
• BUS ROUTES: One of Number 10, 20, etc. (many routes lead to the Waldorf)
• PRE-REQUISITES - On NV08 Opening Party list
• LOST? call or text me, Roland Tanglao (photos of me), cellphone +1 604 729 7924

Many of us enjoyed reading the aggregated feeds from the participants of Northern Voice 2007. So with Northern Voice 2008 coming up soon I asked some people in a local chat if there was going to be a similar group feed of the 2008 participants so we can easily check out the posts of the bloggers at the conference before, during and after the conference.

Jordan Behan Director of Community Relations of Strutta has generously offered to do this on Jaiku.

There will be one blog per attendee (if you want to participate), so if you're an attendee of Northern Voice or Moosecamp 2008 and want more people to read your blog, please send an email to Jordan with the name and feed of your blog and he'll add you to the Northern Voice Feed.

Just blogs, no twitters, jaikus, or flickr feeds or we'll all drown from infoglut.

If you have more than one blog you get to pick which one.

Here's the Northern Voice 2008 Channel website and here's the RSS feed. Enjoy.

...unless you are attending Northern Voice.

Perhaps the single most emphatic piece of feedback we got from last year's event at the Forestry Sciences Centre was that it was too difficult to hike ten minutes or more to reach the best food options. This forced march was especially inconvenient as we were hit with freakish rainstorms, a wintertime event virtually unheard of in Vancouver.

You complained. We listened. Boldly springing into action, we called a caterer. We will provide a midday meal that we hope will be tasty and that will accomodate a wide range of tastes:

Friday: The DIY Sandwich Bar (Salads, assorted rolls, veggie fixins, deli meats, three cheeses, Nanaimo bars, brownies & dessert squares.)

Saturday: Mexican Buffet (bean dip with tortilla chips, corn & black bean salad, flour tortillas, chicken, veggies, monterey jack and cheddar cheeses, sour cream, salsa and guacamole, chocolate brownies.)

If our menu does not please you, you are welcome to favour one of UBC's many other dining options.

Special thanks to our sponsors, who have really stepped up this year, allowing us to serve meals with a minimal increase in attendee fees.

**[The Creative Commons licensed image from hmmlargeart may or may not resemble Saturday's Mexican buffet.]

It happens every year. We receive media enquiries after we sell out the conference. This year we didn't even bother writing a media release because, well, we're all busy and we didn't need one.

That said, we've got at least one speaker appearing in the media this week, and other opportunities may arise. James had the bright idea that we should compile some facts about the conference, as a sort of media cheat sheet. Here they are:

• This is the fourth year for the conference, which started in February, 2005. You can see the sites for previous years here: 2007, 2006, 2005.
• The first two years it was at UBC Robson Square, and last year and this year it's been out at the Forestry building at the UBC main campus.
• In the first year we had about 160 people in attendance, which was a sell-out at the time. We've increased capacity each year, and sold out each year. We'll exceed more than 300 attendees
  this year.
• It's a two day conference, with 'Moose Camp' being Friday's unconference (including an Internet Boot Camp) and Saturday being a more conventional conference.
• Saturday starts with a keynote by Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress. Then things break into three tracks, for a total of 20 sessions.

What other facts would the media be desperate to hear about?

Not, uh, like to corporate interests. The conference is sold out, again, for the fourth year in a row. Thanks to everybody who registered.

For the rest of you Johnny-come-latelies, we warned you. We've started a waiting list on the Northern Voice wiki, to which you can add your name and email address.

Update: There are a few slots left for MooseCamp only (i.e. Friday, but not Saturday); register for them while they're still available!

Just like in previous years, we're making a room available for kids and their parents and caregivers to use, at both MooseCamp (Friday) and NorthernVoice (Saturday). The same rules as other years apply: we can't provide child-minding or babysitting services - we just provide the room and leave it to you to entertain your kids (and maybe someone else's). We suggest you bring appropriate toys/books/other entertainment. There's a wiki page for those interested in bringing their kids to figure out who's coming, what toys to bring, etc. Kids are free as long as you're not bringing a whole horde. If you want to bring more than four kids, please contact us first to make sure we have room!

Just wanted to remind everyone that it's 18 days until Northern Voice, and tickets are selling quickly. Really quickly.

I don't want to say anything scary like "We're selling out!"

I mean, it's probably going to happen, and you're going to be all bummed out if you can't get in because you didn't buy tickets in time. All your friends and co-workers have their tickets. And it's really easy to buy tickets right now.

But I don't like to scare people, so, you know, go ahead and make up your own mind. You can wait and see what happens.

(But I wouldn't wait.)

For the third year in a row Northern Voice sponsor Mt Lehman Credit Union has hired awesome Vancouver street artist Basco5 to do posters for the event. Basco5 just posted this draft of the Northern Voice 2008 poster over at Flickr.

What do you think of this years design? Basco5 is taking feedback and we're not quite done with the final artwork yet so if you have some suggestions now would be a good time. I think we're gonna add some pocast-listening critters to the mix somewhere and add 2008 to the Northern Voice type on the top.

Last year the Northern Voice organizing committee also has a lil bit of extra money in our budget and got Basco5 to design and print some awesome streetart stylee stickers for the event. This year our sponsorships are undersold and we don't have the funds but I thought there might be someone out there who would be interested in seeing this happen again this year and coming to the table with some money. If you're interested pls drop me a line... we still have time to pull it together.