Northern Voice 2007

Kris Krug's photography session at Northern Voice 2007 was videoblogged recently by Robert Scoble of Podtech. Thanks Robert!

Check it out here:

 

Bonus link: Maq's Northern Voice 2007 podcasts and videoblogs!

Derek Miller was going to come to his third Northern Voice, and run a session on podcasting. He's had some ill health, lately, so he couldn't make it. We wanted wish him well in his absence (though he apparently pitched up later on).

Click To Play

There are a variety of food options on UBC campus, though because it is reading week, some of these will be closed, especially on Saturday. This post is mostly a survival guide for that Saturday.

The closest option is Totem Park Dining Hall, which though part of a student residence is open to the public.

The most diverse options that will be open for the duration of the conference are in the "University Village" section, which caters to UBC's on-campus residents -- the village is about 10 minutes walk north-east from the Forestry Science Centre. A quick rundown of the spots:

At University Blvd and Wesbrook: Cafe Crepe (big place, not bad prices, cheapest booze on campus); Mahoney and Sons (high-end fake Irish pub, menu looks OK but pricey, the UBC wireless works here, if a bit slowly).

At University & Alison: McDonalds is the first one you spot. Downstairs in the same building is the “International Food Fair”, a drab-looking food court that is the best spot for cheap eats on campus—two Indian, four Chinese, Mongolian grill, donair, sushi. None of these places had a takeout menu, and when I asked about a fixed menu or delivery they looked at me like I was nuts (in some cases, there was a language issue). Upstairs is UBC Pizza. There is also “University Village restaurant” (Chinese, with all day Dim Sum); and Suga (sit-down Japanese)

Dalhousie & Alison: Only U Cafe (burgers and sandwiches); Mio Japan Sushi, Pita Pit

Western Parkway and Alison: One More Sushi; Vera’s Burger Shack, and a pretty good grocery for people who want to make their own (not bad produce).

Also: The Pit Pub in the basement of the Student Union Building at (http://www.ams.ubc.ca/pit) is another few minutes further northwest.

Those with a vehicle wanting to eat off campus m

A critical correction to some wrong information in the earlier post on transit options.

Thanks to Kathryn for this vital news - "The 44 does not run on weekends!"

To get to UBC on Saturday, your best bet is the 99 along Broadway. If you're coming from downtown, you can catch the 98 south to Broadway and Granville and get the 99 west from from there. Go to www.translink.bc.ca to check out the route maps.

Again: Don't plan on the 44 on Saturday!

Apologies to all. I am ritualistically flogging myself as soon as I finish this post.

In previous years, we haven't had the human power, time or money to sort out formal recording of the Northern Voice sessions. This year, the folks at Podcast Spot have volunteered to do it for us. From Mack:

We're hosting at http://northernvoice.podcastspot.com, which is all decked out in the new Northern Voice theme. Currently we're planning to record all of Saturday's sessions in audio, and as much as of Moosecamp as we can. We've also got a couple video cameras to record some sessions and "roaming" footage. There's four of us, so we should be able to get it all.

All the content is freely accessible obviously, and there's no need to create a Podcast Spot account to access it. We do have a special offer for Northern Voice though - anyone who signs up for a free account with discount code "NV2007" will get an extra 100 MB of upload quota for free.

Of course, everybody's welcome to record anything they want. We just wanted to reassure anybody disappointed to miss the conference that they'll be able to consume the sessions after the fact. Combine this with the chat channel, and it's like you're really there. Or here, as it were.

These new fangled digital conferences often have what is known as a "back channel". From the links at the top, you can now drop into the Chat page.

For those that are IRC enabled, find it at irc.wyldryde.org, in the #northernvoice room. 

There's an overly technical description of what IRC (stands for Internet Relay Chat) is about at Wikipedia. The short answer is that it's a group chat application.

Drop in to the northernvoice chat channel to see what other attendees (or watchers from afar who couldn't make it in person) are saying about the current speaker, the best blog post, or possibly just the best place to go for lunch.

If you're bring a laptop, esp. a Mac laptop, look for people sharing their music, photos, or maybe helping to take real time notes using SubEthaEdit. I expect the recent changes page on the wiki will also be humming.

Whew. That's a lot of information to digest. Take a deep breath. At the conference, try another form of back channel: turn around, look at the person directly behind you, and introduce yourself.

See you in a couple of days...

Boris and crew's Thursday Dinner extravaganza is full and accordingly we've turned off Thursday dinner signups! We're maxed out for safety reasons at 150. Mmmm, I can taste it now! Yum! Go Boris, Ben Garfinkel and Mark Busse, Robert Scales, and Jer Thorp go!

 

If you registered late, or the email got spam-blocked, you might not have received our big informational email. So here it is for your edification:

Hello Northern Voice Attendees!

We're super-psyched for Northern Voice 3.0! It's going to be bigger than ever, with 300 attendees and events over three days! And by the time you read this, the conference will have sold out for the third year in a row.

This email provides a quick update and late-breaking details about Northern Voice. Of course, for up to the minute info, visit the conference website.

The Schedule

We’ll be following the same format as previous years, with a new Thursday night reception:

• Thursday evening, 7:00pm, February 22 - Opening night party at Heritage Hall--here's a map. There will be great food for everybody, and Lee LeFever will be talking about how he blogged and podcasted his year-long trip around the world. Admission is free, but we need to know if you're coming. (UPDATE: Thursday dinner signups are closed; we are at max capacity of 150 for the dinner)
• Friday, February 23 - An unconference nicknamed Moose Camp
• Saturday, February 24 - A keynote by Anil Dash, followed by more traditional talks and panels

For the complete schedule, visit the Northern Voice website. We'll also be distributing a paper schedule at the event.

At planet.northernvoice.ca (and the "Voices" tab on this site), we've added all the RSS feeds of all the people who provided their feed at registration.

Check it out. It's a great way to get an idea of the attendees and what they are thinking about as Northern Voice gets closer and closer. And for you geeks who want to roll your own, you can grab the Planet Northern Voice OPML file.

Kudos to fellow NV organizer, Dale McGladdery for implementing this using the Drupal Feedparser module. It rocks.

Errors, omissions? No problem. Leave a comment here OR put your correct feed on the Attendees wiki page (please make it obvious that that you would like your feed to be added to the planet!) .

So, this is it: we're hitting the final couple of days. I've still got lots to do along with my master chefs – Ben Garfinkel and Mark Busse, Robert Scales, and Jer Thorp. Planning has been fun, and I think we've nailed down the menu. I mean...a chocolate fountain, sponsored by Purdy's, fantastic! And not one, but 2 cakes from The Uncommon Cake.

The email's gone out to all the fine registered folks, and everything is rolling. If you're more RSS enabled than email enabled, I'm posting this on the front page to ask one last thing of you all: please do signup for dinner (UPDATE: Thursday dinner signups are closed; we are at max capacity of 150 for the dinner) to let us know you're coming – it will help with the planning numbers.

Now, where was that sharpening stone, I have to get my knives ready....