BarCampVancouver: The End

Session: For some reason, the wireless crapped out on me at the very end of the session Tod Maffin led regarding “Hacking the Mothership(CBC)”, and I had a complete blog post vanish on me when I hit publish and lost all bandwidth at that exact moment. Yeah, that totally sucked, but I imagine that this is just apart of the beauty that is BarCampVancouver. Let me see if I can recall a little bit from the last few sessions of the day that I attended, and in no particular order.

Drupal is a powerful platform that I am becoming more and more familiar with everyday. It can do more than just a blog, and the programming aspect is a bit more meaty than WordPress. What I have learned in the past few months about PHP and MySQL tends to make me interested in seeing what I can do with Drupal. It’d be a major jump into a learning binge, but I’d like to give it a shot.

Other interesting elements to the platform is how it can be integrated with podcasting. That is, one site can serve up multiple feeds, and it is all built in to Drupal. Modules can make you site dance circles, and installation is generally simple. Some things do take some knowledge and experience. I’ve done a bit of reading about it up till now, but the session today really gave me a better understanding.

Session: David Gratton led a session about “Music Social Networking” that was interesting to sit through. He mainly laid out what his company is doing with ProjectOpus.com. It’s a lot like how it sounds, but is learning from its errors, as well as its users, and attempting to put a new spin on how people network in the world of enjoying music. Find friend, new bands, spread the word, and report back to the artist so they know what’s going on with their music.

It’s a really great concept, and I asked about how this can be incorporated to podcasting. They have a lot of local Vancouver artists already on the network. I’ll have to explore their library and see what I can do with their service. If anything, I’ll be in touch with them for sure.

Alexandra Samuel ran a session on tagging and the various ways that one can use them to help promote their blog and network with other bloggers with similar interests. These are classic tools that all blogs seem to have built in these days, but there are many ways to expand their effectiveness. Her blog and company’s website, Social Signal, are full of great ideas about this topic.

Session: And this is where I hate my laptop or the wireless network or the evil spirits who struck down my ability to have bandwidth in WorkSpace at the very moment that I had a long list of points that Tod Maffin covered in his session. That sucked so much.

Basically, Tod opened the floor to everyone in attendance to get ideas on how this new age of media can revolutionize the CBC as it currently stands. How can blogs, podcasting, and interactive media alter or be incorporated into what the CBC does? At the same time, how do we, as the general public, feel about where we can fit in the grand scheme of things.

Damn, Tod. It makes sense as to why you have scaled back on your podcasting projects now. I talked to him briefly and discovered that he is no longer affiliated with the Foursevens Podcast Network as he was before. TodBits still exists. He just hasn’t gotten around to getting something done. Look at what he’s trying to do here with the CBC. Think he’s busy?

There were a lot of interesting ideas thrown around that my tired mind can’t really recall now(stupid wireless). One thing I do recall is the fact that everyone in the session has listened to a CBC podcast. On the flipside, none of us knew that the CBC will pay you to read or perform a piece from your blog if you were to submit it, and, of course, it was chosen for air. That’s something I’m going to keep in mind.

WorkSpace - Leaving BarCampVancouver 2006After all of that, even sitting here on the couch at home, there’s still a lot to soak in. I have a variety of contacts that I made, shook the hands of some really cool people, and dropped some business cards that we made up last week. Events like this are dangerous. It doesn’t help that I get ideas in my head, fall in love with them, and then dive in head first until, not coming up for air until I’m happy with the result.

I ran around, taking pictures with my Nokia all day. All the pictures are now in this Flickr set.

I’m beat. After our time spent with Matthew Good last night and today’s excitement, I’m ready to crash and hit the beach in the morning. It was fun.

BarCampVancouver: Open source wireless jam

It’s tough to get a single in here right now. As soon as lunch was over, the bandwidth got gobbled up. We’ll see when I can get around to getting this published.

Open source media is the session I’m sitting in right now. It’s amazing how well I can listen and type at the same time. But the focus is how much the realm of how media relations and public relations has changed. Are press releases a thing of the past? Are blogs the future way in which companies release their major news announcements?

And why am I listening to this? Well, with podcasting, who do you communicate with the public? You can’t just say, “I’m podcasting and people will get my message through that method.” No. It won’t work that way. Just because you have a radio transmitter, not everyone will be listening to the radio. You have to do more to get your information out.

It’s probably not promoted enough, but I blog a lot about what the podcast does here. Trials, news, and other information as it comes about. Perhaps I don’t promote that enough, but it’s more than what the podcast just is, right?

I finally have wireless, so time to get this posted. Tod Maffin just arrived and will host his CBC session later as well.

BarCampVancouver: Morning over

The pizzas just arrived and the noon horn just sounded from the BC Hydro Plant. That means the morning sessions are officially over.

BarCampVancouver: Ryan thinks everything is wrong with podcastingSo far, I’ve sat through three sessions and overheard a fourth. The last one was about java programming which was incredibly cool. I should probably paid more attention to that one, and I can already see what was being demonstrated as being turned into a WordPress plugin. Basically, it’s a what to fill out forms, and when typing the date, you can enter in “tomorrow” or “two days from now”, only to have the scripting turn it directly into the corresponding date. Neat stuff.

The digital archiving session gives you a lot to think about. From the basic way that you store information on your computer, all the way to what is going on in the world, saving your information is key. The true magic is making sure that whatever you do, it works and lasts for years and years to come.

BarCampVancouver: James Sherret - AdHackRyan Cousineau, a Metroblogging Vancouver contributer, led a session about all that is wrong with podcasting. The scale of the session stemmed further than just that specific medium, but that was the heart of the conversation in the end. What his main point was the meta level of the whole thing. Searching and finding information is difficult when it comes to the piles of audio out there. Should we be doing more to transcribe things so that the world can Google us easier? It’s an interesting and vaild concept. Gave me a little bit to think about.

James Sherret led a session about a new project that he is heading. AdHack is a brilliant idea, and I’m excited to see it launch. Today was kinda the unveiling of the venture. It’s a worthwhile way to truly reconsider how advertising works.

Keep checking the Flickr stuff(mine and Rebecca’s).

My pizza is getting cold. More later.

It’s a wireless orgy here

I take pictures with my Nokia, go to send it over to my laptop via Bluetooth, and the sucker could spend all day discovering devices.

The bandwidth is a little jammed in WorkSpace as well. We’ll see how that affects me or Rebecca doing any posting.

Getting it started at BarCampVancouver

BarCampVancouver 2006: the board of death...  er, sessionsSitting at our first session at BarCampVancouver. We’re a little run down on sleep, but we’re here.

I’m not sure how much posting will get done today, but pay attention to the Flickr[tag: BarCampVancouver].

There are a lot of very itelligent people here as well as some familiar faces. Some I’ve met before, others I’ve seen a lot of pictures or read a lot of their blogs. Always weird meeting up with folks. Makes you feel like a stalker in a way.

Podcasting has been mentioned just a few times, but now sessions regarding the topic specifically. We’ll see what happens as the day goes on.

Digital Archiving. I gotta pay full attention now.