john bollwitt blog

You could say that this style of WordCamp is a bit out of the ordinary. In fact, I’m not sure that many WordCamps are held in casinos, but this event is pretty nice in the fact that there is an amazing space out here for gatherings, meetups, and conventions like this.

WordCamp Fraser Valley is a growing push to move web related camps like this out of the downtown core and into the mysterious world away from the ocean waters. Wifi, reasonable sources of power, plenty of water, a huge room, podium, PA system, projector, and a screen. What more could you really need for a WordCamp?

Well, it might be better if something like this was a bit longer, but an all day event at a location like this might be tough. If you head down the escalators, you might be enticed by the various ways to gamble your money away, so you’re probably better off sticking to your laptop like myself and get some content out while checking out your RSS feeds.

The list of presenters tonight are a good group of folks. Raul kicked off this WordCamp with a session on switching from Blogger to WordPress, and it was a great way to introduce newbies with a way of letting go of your worries and do more with blogging in general. Even if you don’t have a blog or are just beginning with your blog, these concepts are worth considering.

Gary from BlurFur, the folks who have headed up this event, made a last minute presentation on business blogging after another speaker was unable to attend. A topic that is largely ignored, and often not even thought about, businesses should be doing more blogging. Period. If you want a way to reach your customers directly, then this is it. Promote your product, talk about your industry, or publish your your press releases on your blog, there are many avenues you can take when it comes to adding a blog to your business.

More topics are being presented tonight, so I will let Rebecca’s live blog speak more to what’s going on, not to mention that she is also one of the presenters tonight. She will be speaking about adding custom sidebars to your posts and pages, something we are big fans of doing. Kulpreet is currently speaking about security to WordPress, and John Chow will bring his evil, money making ways with blogging to the room.

I have to say that I am really impressed with tonight’s turnout. It’s always great to see people from various aspects of blogging. And yes, there are people that don’t even have a blog and are here to find out more. If that’s someone like yourself, then check out a WordCamp sometime. The WordPress community not only does geek stuff and talk about code, but we also like to share the things we know.

I’ve been invited by the intrepid Dave Olson to join him, Rob Cottingham, and Roland Tanglao to be apart of a panel for the coming Net Tuesday4 on July 8, 2008. This is in the series of events in the NetSquared project.

Our mission is to spur responsible adoption of social web tools by social benefit organizations. There’s a whole new generation of online tools available – tools that make it easier than ever before to collaborate, share information and mobilize support. These tools include blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, podcasting, and more. Some people describe them as “Web 2.0″; we call them the social web, because their power comes from the relationships they enable. [netsquared]

The coming panel will be about “Podcasting for Social Change“. Essentially, we are going to gather together on this panel to talk about these tools that exist for pretty much anyone to use in order to get their message out about a cause or organization that is trying to create change within a community.

Whether it’s on a local or global scale, our intention is to give you some insight on how you can use a medium like podcasting to help you get to where you want to be. The road map is fairly wide open, but I’ll do my best to share insights on how to get started, recording methods, editing tips, and how to get that podcast episode out to the world.

What: Net Tuesday4 - Podcasting for Social Change
When: Tuesday, July 8, 2008 5:30 PM!
Where: WorkSpace, 400, 21 Water St., Vancouver BC, V6B 1A1 [google maps]

Topic: Ways Non-profits/Social Change orgs can use podcasts to spread their message

To make it easy, we’ll cover:
1) planning
2) producing tips (with toys to demo)
3) publishing/promoting

panel:
dave olson - moderater/podcaster
john bollwitt - podcaster and audio engineer
rob cottingham - social change technologist
roland tanglao - mobile pundit and tech-evangelist

And to help you think about checking out the panel, check out this great promotional video that Dave made in anticipation. Gotta say that my tequila bottle mic stand is still one of my favorite podcasting engineering feats to this day. Simple and useful in oh so many ways.

What seems like ages ago, I was invited to be apart of the “Frogsquad” at EPIC 2008 and happyfrog.ca’s official media coverage of the weekend festivities. Rebecca joined in with her blogging expertise, and I did my fair share of producing podcasts while DaveO ran amok inside the convention. I have never published so many episodes of a podcast as I did in three days. Lots of audio goodness there.

To give a little a little more background on the event, EPIC is the annual, sustainability living expo that happens in downtown Vancouver. This was my first time attending, but I’ve heard about the event previously. People gather to discuss and discover ways to live a more green lifestyle and find alternative resources to satisfy everyday needs. And mark your calendar for next year’s expo, May 8-10, 2009.

While we’re at it, I should mention that if you are looking to find more information like this in the lower mainland of British Columbia, then that’s where happyfrog.ca comes in. They are a community and directory of all things green in B.C., and you can find a wealth of information there as well as contribute to the growing site. Every time I hear from DaveO about it, there’s more and more in the pipes, so keep checking back.

DaveO got a lot of great interviews, and the Vespa folks were one of my favorites. They are introducing a three wheeled version of their scooter which makes me want one. It’s a scooter by law, but you basically need a motorcycle license to drive it. Oh yeah, and there’s no kick stand.

Even Raul got into the mix, taking the microphone and talking to a well respected expert in the field of eco-living, Adria Vasil.

Certainly the highlight to my experience at EPIC 2008 was an appearance by Mike Holmes and his talk on how we can build greener homes, and how to do it cheaper, better, and right. I’ve come to really enjoy his show on HGTV, but it will end after this next season. According to what he mentioned on stage, he will be starting a new show called “Making It Right“. He’ll be “going to New Orleans, and we’ll make things right there. After that, we’ll be going to Africa, selecting areas and families that need good homes and show how we can make things right there.”

I’m not sure what comes after Africa, but that’s pretty amazing.

Of course, you can’t forget all the clothes you could buy at EPIC. And honestly, there was a lot of really cool stuff. I think most people have hemp come to mind as being the main source of material at an event like this, but there are all sorts of ways that people are creating great clothing. More so, the happyfrog.ca t-shirt I got is made out of bamboo, and it’s fantastic! It’s so soft that I want bed sheets made from bamboo now.

I have lots more pictures of the event on Flickr, but there are a lot more reports of the event on the frogblog. After all, this is official media coverage, most of it created live from the event floor, and I’m lucky to have been apart of it.

I had the chance to attend the Bridging Media conference a few weeks ago while Rebecca live blogged the whole event as a media sponsor. It’s been a little while since then, but I figure it’s better late than never to post a few thoughts about it while showing off some photos that I snapped throughout the day.

The purpose of this event was to bring the realms of traditional media into the same conversation as electronic media, and it was a really good mix of methods. Print, broadcast, and film shared the same stage as online video producers, bloggers, web marketers, and so on.

Being someone who currently works in the area of broadcasting, this is something that I struggle with on a daily, personal level. How can the realms of online media mesh with the traditional, highly stagnate methods of traditional media? That’s what this conference of sorts was meant to open the conversation to, not that I have a lot of weight or say as to how these two things are indeed bridged. I’m just a huge advocate for it.

It’s really tough for me to break down each and every conversation at this point, so I really encourage you to read through Rebecca’s live blog to get a better sense of what was discussed.

What I took away from this conference is that there is a lot to learn about how each side of the coin can work together in order to enrich media content as a whole. From education to story telling to information sharing to the way that marketers let you know about neat, new things, there are a lot of methods that have strengths and weaknesses which can only be helped through sharing the load.

In this world of electronic media, it’s tough to say that one form of distribution is better than the other. Each method has the way it delivers its message, and that message gets to a particular audience based on interest as well as the method. To me, it says that the only way to really strengthen your distribution is to have more ways to put out your message.

In radio, there is the old adage of saying it enough times and someone is bound to hear it at least once. But not everyone listens to the radio, and not everyone owns a TV. So it comes down to getting your message out to as many outlets that you can, and then doing it well. That’s what I think Bridging Media is trying to do, all the while opening new doors for traditional media to try out.

And finally, congrats to Megan and Erica for pulling together a really great event. It was a great day that really left me feeling inspired and full of great ideas.

I gave my first ever, public speaking session at MooseCamp this morning, and things went… ok.

The truth is that I’ve been so slammed with work lately that my mind hasn’t been able to wrap itself around the talk until this morning. Around 6AM, I went running through Stanley Park and took the time to plot out a course in my head as to what I wanted to talk about. Thing is, the neurons in my brain are consistently jumping around, so I’m not sure I said everything I wanted to say or said things that made sense.

Photo credit: Duane Storey on Flickr

I wanted to make a quick post with bullet point links to the things I mentioned and name dropped. There might be additions later.

• radiozoom.net - My initial podcast
• thecrazycanucks.com - The podcast by Canucks fans and for hockey fans in general
• RSS (Wikipedia) - The one thing that makes your podcast work
• Ubercaster - The audio production program that I use to produce all my podcasts
• Castblaster - A PC based program that is great for producing podcasts as well

Northern Voice 2008 is quickly approaching, and it will be here before I know it. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing because that means I have less time to prepare for actually participating this year. In fact, I won’t be just helping out with the event as much as actually being a speaker on both Friday and Saturday.

MooseCamp is on the Friday, and this year will be slightly different than previous years, if I have understood correctly. The intent is to have this day be more of an introductory track in terms of teaching and sharing the ins and outs of various elements of new media and all the various fun things on the internet that folks like myself like to use. It’s also an unconference[wiki] where nearly anyone with an idea for a session can show up that day and toss their hat into the ring to present something. Generally there is a gathering at the start of the day where everyone nominates what they want to see, and the winners get a time slot.

I’ve been asked to lead a thirty minute session on an intro to podcasting. I’m simply calling it, “Podcasting 101: You do not need an iPod - A crash course on what podcasting is and how you can become a podcaster”. With a short amount of time, there is no way you can cover everything you need to, so this will be more of an introductory session to give you more of an idea of the nuts and bolts of podcasting as well as a guide for things to think about beyond putting out your first episode.

I know I’m not a pro in that I’m making tons of money with the podcasts I produce. Still, I know how to make a podcast, and this is what I intend to share to anyone who wants to learn how that happens. Being that I’ve been podcasting with RadioZoom since 2004, I’ve seen the methods change and morph through many phases. And let me tell you, it’s so much easier now than it was three and a half years ago.

Photo credit: jeffreykeefer on Flickr

Northern Voice 2008 kicks in full force on Saturday. There are already a variety of sessions on the schedule that I know that I am looking forward to, but I’ll also be on a panel that day as well, this time as a full representative from The Crazy Canucks. In fact, we will all be there for a panel discussion on “Sports Blogging and Podcasting“. It’s a topic that hasn’t seen a lot of coverage in blogging conferences like this, so it should be interesting discussion, if not to raise awareness with the struggles that bloggers, who are fans, have when it comes to sharing their passion in what they write or podcast about.

So with that being said, I really need to get cracking. It’s not so much that I couldn’t spend thirty minutes talking about podcasting. It’s limiting myself to 30 minutes to talk about podcasting that will be tough, not to mention time for people asking questions. Here’s hoping that all those speeches in college paid off.

Registration is now open for Northern Voice 2008!

This is the fourth, annual new media conference that I had the opportunity to attending last February for my first time. The deadline for speaker submissions has come and gone, so the next step is opening the event up for attendees. NV is in February again this year, and the dates have been set for the 22nd and 23rd. Single day registration is $40, and it is $60 for the entire conference, per person.

Also worth mentioning is the pre-conference party that will be happening on the Thursday night before the event at the Tiki Room. It was last year’s party that introduced me to a lot of people who are common friends and faces, so it’s certainly worth attending. Just don’t call it a “networking thing”. That’s so lame.

I’m really looking forward to this year’s conference. With my day job, getting back into the fray of blogging and podcasting can be a bit of a challenge. That’s doesn’t stop me with doing my best to pay attention to what’s going on with the rest of the world, or Vancouver for that matter.

So much has changed in the world of new media, social media, online communities, and so on, just since last year. Last year, Twitter was all the rage. Now we have Facebook. What new things will people be talking about? What has stayed the same?

Still, the forces of blogging and podcasting are still driving hard. Always looking forward to what other people are doing to breathe new life into something “old”.

Before I talk about the event I attended tonight, let me just start out with the fact that Facebook has probably changed my, and our, lives. I’ve long lived by the principle that social networking sites are not that affective when it forces us to sit behind terminals and not interact, calling each other friends when we’ve never even met in the really real world. Doesn’t sound very social, does it?

Facebook, on the other hand, falls outside of that premise. Granted that in the days that Friendster actually held ground, I was stuck in the Midwest of the U.S. where you tend to think of meeting other users to be utterly geeky, if not insanely dangerous or bizarre. In Vancouver, on the other hand, it’s made our lives incredibly busy, and that falls outside of things you do with your friends. And those are friends that I’ve actually made contact with in some way, most likely face to face.

In a way, that kinda brings us to the Vancouver Facebook Garage that occurred last night. Rebecca was sponsored to do the live blog for the event, and I should add that she rocked it. So much so that I’m not going to do much to recap it because all the details you need to know are there.

Photo credit: kk on Flickr

I will say that my major contribution to the night was bringing along my tripod for Roland to use for the live video stream of the entire event, but all of the presentations were of unique interest.

They all had something that you could take away from them if you looked at the overall, big picture of how a Facebook application could imply a concept to a different or new idea. I know that I took a lot of ideas away from the night for potential projects in the future, but those will remain to be seen. Plus, I wouldn’t have a clue as to where to start to make my own Facebook application.

Not to rip into the event, but there were some certain aspects of the evening I would have reconsidered if I had planned it. Perhaps I should have payed more attention to the Facebook event, but I didn’t know that the evening was scheduled from 5:30PM to 8:30PM. By the time the evening was over, there wasn’t much time within the eight minute break to find some food to put into my very empty stomach, not to mention any ideas as to where I could get water or find the washroom. Being the maiden event in Vancouver, I’m sure things will adjust for the next one.

Also, Kris Krug took some amazing photos during the evening, so you can check his flickr out for more shots from the event.

I’m not sure what or how I can take away some of the things that were presented last night, but there are a number of concepts that I can think of as to what I would add to Facebook in terms of an application. I’m just a little fuzzy as to how I’d do it, yet alone where to start. Maybe I’ll learn that in the next session where someone can point me to how a newbie can make a Facebook application.

As if there aren’t enough things going on in Vancouver that relate back to technology, social media, or something to do with Facebook, Twitter, or whatever social networking tool you use, here comes another one.

Third Tuesday in Vancouver is an event that focuses on bringing people together to share ideas and concepts about various things relating to the online world. In fact, let me allow the Facebook group to explain it better.

THIRD TUESDAY is a monthly meetup for communications and marketing folks interested in learning/sharing more about the practical applications of social media in business.

Third Tuesday has real world chapters and meetups in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Montreal and Halifax.

Third Tuesday meetups typically include a guest speaker who talks with the group about different social media technologies and trends ranging from blogging, podcasting, social networks to influencer marketing and online WOM techniques — and how these things apply to communication, marketing, community building and society. We really try to encourage group discussion and learning, and we do this by keeping our meetups very casual and open, but focused too so that our members walk away with new insights and actionable ideas for their businesses.

Third Tuesday is also an opportunity to simply network with industry peers, to share knowledge, experiences and perhaps a few laughs and drinks too. So, if you’re interested in some thought provoking discussion about new media marketing and communications, please join us for Third Tuesday.

Even though I was (depressingly) unable to attend BarCampVancouver due to my work schedule, this will be a neat opportunity to not only experience this realm of meetups, but I’ll also get to see some of those folks from BarCampVancouver as well. I’m also curious to hear about what tools or methods people are using for the realm of business, especially when it comes to thinking outside of the box to do unique, successful things. Should be good.

Rebecca and I tried to develop some sort of insane plan to attend WordCamp in San Francisco this weekend. Alas, the income is overshadowed by the expense of such adventures, and there is a wealth of information being shared that I would like to have been apart of.

WordCamp is a 2-day conference for WordPress users and developers. The first day will focus on how to be a better blogger, the second on the development and future of WordPress.

When?
7/21-7/22, 2007
Where?
Swedish American Hall, San Francisco CA - Google Map
Cost?
Twenty-five dollars, with scholarships available.
Why?
To get WordPress users together, learn from each other, figure out the future of publishing on the web, and have a good time. [wordcamp]

Nonetheless, The WordCamp Report is the site to keep up to date with what’s going on at WordCamp over the duration of the event, especially for non-attendees like me. I also heard on The WordPress Podcast that they will be checking in from time to time with updates from the conference, if not giving a nice wrap up in a later episode.

Would have been neat to meet the likes of Matt Mullenweg or Dave Weiner. John Biehler is running amok down there, so I’m sure he’ll have plenty of pictures and things to say about it.

Update: Starting to see a lot of pictures from the event come through on Flickr here.

The dates for BarCampVancouver2007 have been announced, so mark August 17th and 18th on your calendar. Sign ups have been going fast, and there were about thirty people putting their name on the list of attendees within the first twenty-four hours.

Checking just now, the list is just over eighty, and there is a max capacity of 120, give or take what the organizers think they can cram into WorkSpace. My name is already on the list, and the same can be said about Rebecca.

Our adventure to BarCampVancouver2006 was our first foray into the tech community that exists here, and it was awesome. We met a lot of interesting people, many of them becoming friends as much as great people to network with. There were a lot of great sessions as well, many of which I blogged about here.

If you’re interested, sign up sooner rather than later. You can always take your name off the list as the dates approach, plus this particular unconference should be free. However, last year we gave a small donation to help cover the costs and got t-shirts in return. Very sweet.

The guys at the Canadian Podcast Buffet ran an audio comment that I sent them in their latest episode. I was wondering about the awesomeness that is Podcasters Across Boarders and asked why we don’t do something like this on the west coast. Their responses are great, and I hope I keep their gears turning so that something might happen.

This is an idea that I mentioned to Tod Maffin at the recent DemoCampVancouver, and he had the same conclusion that I did. We should just do it ourselves.

Mainly, I like the approach that PAB takes with the whole concept of their conference. I think that if we combined that with the mentality of what goes on at a BarCamp and/or Northern Voice, we could come up with something really good out here on the west coast.

Remember, this wouldn’t just be a west coast of Canada only thing. People from anywhere and everywhere would be welcome to attend, and I’m sure that we could pull an interesting crowd from the U.S. side of the border. I mean, you can’t tell me that folks from Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and on down the coast wouldn’t think about the trek, andI say this with the folks from Geek.Farm.Life in mind. Andrew drove from Indiana for last year’s PAB in Kingston, Ontario. Not a huge amount of distance, but a commute nonetheless.

Yes, if you build it, they will come. Wrapping my head around it is another story, but I think Vancouver could pull it off.