I can hardly believe my good fortune, but I’ve been offered a ticket by a supporting vendor to Northern Voice, a fascinating “community-based blogging and personal publishing conference” right here in downtown Vancouver.
It’ll take place for 2 days, this Friday and Saturday, pretty much all day at the UBC downtown campus (underground, just opposite the Museum of Art, right in the centre of downtown). I’ve gotten support from work so that I can spend the day there on Friday. Sessions run the gamut from integrating the new identity system, sxore, podcasting and videoblogging, AJAX for geeks and non-geeks to Structured Blogging and Microformats. If none of these terms ring a bell, don’t worry. Some of this stuff is pretty cutting edge. There’ll also be some sessions on Saturday on The Changing Face of Journalism, and my favourite title for a session: “So They’re Threatening to Sue: Blogs and the Law”, featuring the conference’s founder and organizer, Darren Barefoot. I met Darren briefly when I attended the first blogger’s Meetup a few months ago (although those days sometimes feel like they’re in the distant past). The conference is in its second year. I like the History Page on their site, though. It reads simply: “It’s fun and pretentious to have a history page for your second year.” I’m thrilled to be part of what may be becoming a major event in Vancouver, and the blogosphere (whatever that is anyway).