Northern Voice 2008

I always have a hard time con­cen­trat­ing on try­ing to blog in the mid­dle of an event, even if in this case, it’s an event about blogging.

All right, let’s fill in the when and where: It’s lunchtime, and I’m sit­ting in the atri­um of the Forestry Sci­ences Build­ing on the UBC Cam­pus. I like this space. It has 3 lev­els of bal­conies and bridges, as well as a glass roof, where this year, the sun is stream­ing down. Being the Forestry Sci­ences build­ing, there is wood every­where, from sup­port­ing beams and a sys­tem of struc­tur­al sup­ports to desks and pan­el­ing that cov­ers most of the walls. Despite the fact that it’s clear­ly a mod­ern build­ing (and a lit­tle bit util­i­tar­i­an), it has some nat­ur­al warmth, which is also enhanced by the crowds of peo­ple all tak­ing pic­tures, chat­ting, and writ­ing on their lap­tops (in oth­er words, act­ing like students).

The morn­ing’s ses­sions that I attend­ed were most­ly about blog­ging in cor­po­rate envi­ron­ments: how to cul­ti­vate Wikis inside of com­pa­nies, nav­i­gat­ing the IT Depart­ment, deal­ing with a tech­no­log­i­cal deci­sion, and find­ing some­one who can be an effec­tive ‘Wiki Gard­ner’ (Now there’s an inter­est­ing title for a busi­ness card!)

I’ve seen many old friends, and am try­ing to keep from spread­ing what­ev­er may be left of the my cold (which has been around me so long that I almost feel as if we are on a first name basis). The tech­nol­o­gy I’ve spied is not all that sur­pris­ing: most­ly Macs, both Mac­Books and Mac­book Pros (plus a sprin­kling of a few Vaios and Dells). I’ve seen at least 4 iPhones.

Which brings me to my good news: After a peri­od where I thought I had ‘bricked’ it (i.e. turned it into an expen­sive paper­weight), I got my iPhone work­ing. It is Jail­bro­ken, Unlocked, and see­ing the Rogers net­work (Rogers, inci­den­tal­ly, announced their mas­sive earn­ings today, which does­n’t sur­prise me in the least giv­en that our phone bills are the high­est bills of any­thing we pay in Van­cou­ver, sur­pass­ing elec­tric­i­ty, cable TV, Inter­net and gaso­line ) Every­thing is work­ing fine except for the ‘where am I’ fea­ture, which I haven’t been able to get at all. For­tu­nate­ly for me, I know where I am with­out hav­ing to con­sult the phone.

This after­noon will be some more ‘techie’ ses­sions (I think). I’ll write about those and put in the few snap­shots that I’ve tak­en, this evening.