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Blogging

Northern Voice 2009 – Vancouver’s Finest

by Randy Stewart on February 23, 2009

in Blogging, Conferences, Northern Voice, Social Media

northernvoicebanner.jpg

I went to my first Northern Voice 2 years ago after meeting up with some of the organizers at the previous year’s Gnomedex and thinking, “hey, these guys are all right.” Northern Voice is one of my favorite conferences to go to because despite it’s small size, it attracts a wealth of interesting, insightful people who want to share their experiences.

This year I got a chance to catch up with old friends and make a bunch of new ones.

A few thank you’s.

Jim DeLaHunt took Jim DeLaHunt - Northern Voice 2009me up on my ride share offer and I ended up invited to his lovely downtown apartment to for dinner with his wife, Ducky and friend. Thanks for the great company, conversation and for lovely time (and letting me photograph your spectacular view).

Jeremy Latham is my new best friend. Northern Voice 2009-90Not only did we share several interests (well, besides the normal nerdy conference stuff), he fixed a CSS problem on my blog that I had puzzled over off and on for 6 months. Thanks to him, I’ll actually have a home on my blog for my photos soon!

Thanks to the organizers, volunteers and sponsors of Northern Voice. Every year seems to be better and better. Darren Barefoot put it best,

It’s a sausage party no longer. I have no proof of this, but it also feels more diverse in terms of the age and ethnicity of attendees.

I couldn’t agree more.

Some Northern Voice Highlights

Rob Cottingham Northern Voice 2009-88 seriously killed on stage with his send up of the blogging world. Particularly funny was his proposed meme of “3 people you’ve cheated on your spouse with.” I’ve got some video lying around somewhere that I’ll post soon.

PhotoCamp Tim Bray - Northern Voice 2009with Tim Bray as emcee was a departure from the past with less “prepared” material and more discussion. I actually felt like I had something to contribute this year and was a lot of fun.

Dave Olson’s interview Bev Davies - Northern Voice 2009with Kris Krug and Bev Davies about rock and roll photography was fantastic. I had met Bev the day before after an intro by Peter Andersen and I had a lovely conversation, but had no idea she was so punk rock. Her pictures speak volumes.

There is too much to mention about what I liked about Northern Voice this year, so I’ll leave it at that. Can’t wait until next’s conference.

Check out my pictures of Northern Voice on Flickr.

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Wordcamp SF 2008 Follow Up

by Randy Stewart on August 19, 2008

in Blogging, Conferences, Wordcamp

San Francisco, Aug 16, 2008

Had a great time at this year’s Wordcamp in San Francisco. I met a lot of great people and had a lot of great conversations and I think, got some pretty decent photographs of the event.

I did have some mixed feelings about the event, but I recognize that creating a low cost, high quality confernce a is a series of trade-offs and I think the Wordcamp organizers made a lot of good decisions.

  • Two tracks, one for users and one for devs.
    This was smart as it got everyone together in the same facility on the same day, and I’m not a dev, so there were no decisions to make :-).
  • The UCSF facility is awesome.
    Plenty of space to run the two track event and let people spread out, take notes, Twitter, blog, process photos etc. The only problem with this place is, it’s out in the middle of nowhere. I suspect those that drove were pretty happy with parking.
  • The WiFi was great!
    (But I still used my EVDO card to let other folks use the bandwidth). This is a pretty common complaint at events and the UCSF folks clearly had some bandwidth and a well managed network.
  • It felt big.
    This is both a point for and against the conference. I miss the intimacy of the Swedish American Hall, but I’m excited for Wordpress’ explosive growth. I didn’t get to talk to everyone I wanted to, but there is always the Internets.

I didn’t take many notes, but I did take a lot of pictures. Here are some links to folks who did blog.

Finally, a huge thanks to Matt and all the folks who helped with the conference.

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Wordcamp SF 2008 Pictures

August 19, 2008

Here are my pix from this year’s Wordcamp.

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Out and about August 2008 Edition

August 12, 2008

After a brief shut down in the extra curricular activities, I’ll be out and about in the real world (errr…. echo chamber) real soon now.
Here are a couple of events you can spot me at in the next couple of weeks.
Wordcamp 2008

While I haven’t blogged as much in the last year as I would have [...]

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Twitter in Plain English

March 6, 2008

My pals Lee and Sachi LeFever of CommonCraft have done it again, just in time for SXSW. These guys do a really great job of explaining difficult topics in “plain english.” These videos are really great if you are just starting out trying to figure out this strange online world.
At last year’s SXSWi [...]

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KOMO Blogger Meetup

August 2, 2007

Free beer, nerds and a new lens to try out, what’s not to like. Chris Pirillo (of Lockergnome, Gnomedex and TechTV fame) helped organize a get together of over 150 Seattle area bloggers for a little sit down with the “old media” types at KOMO 4.

Great conversation with lots of “aren’t you famous on [...]

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Mac blogger toolkit – Northern Voice 2007

February 26, 2007

CBC columnist and Mac geek, Tod Maffin ran another great session at Moosecamp around favorite productivity tools. Below are my favorites from the session.

ImageWell – Swiss Army knife for images (free)

Paparazzi – takes screenshots of full web pages.

TextExpander – condenses messages, phrases or code that you might reuse all the time into short keystrokes.

VoodooPad [...]

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