Northern Voice 2007

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).

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This is a topic that arose among the organizers recently--should NV have an entry in Wikipedia? We think so, but of course, we're biased. BloggerCon has an entry, and I figure we're as notable as that conference.

Of course, because of our bias as organizers, we shouldn't create such an entry. You, on the other hand, can, if you think the conference merits such an entry.

If you're going to do so, you'll need some background and verifiable third-party references. Voila:

• Initial post on starting Northern Voice back in March, 2004, including a survey of interest level.
• Results of that survey.
• Previous versions of the conference site from 2005 and 2006.
• Photos from Northern Voice.

You'll need some mainstream media references, to demonstrate notability:

• “Companies take online journals to heart”, Vancouver Sun, Feb. 18, 2005 (behind a subscription wall)
• “The Blogosphere’s New World Disorder”, The Tyee, Feb. 21, 2005
• CBC Morning Show Interview, Feb. 18 (MP3)

There's definitely more coverage--I just don't have it easily at hand.

If you do decide to create an entry, drop us a line via the contact page.

Thanks to everybody who submitted requests for travel bursaries. The organizers spent some time knocking our (virtual heads) together and have selected the following winners:

• Candace
• Will
• Jim
• Mike
• Monique
• Laurie

Monique's actually a Vancouverite, but she had a great idea for how to spend one of the bursaries:

I know that all sorts of great people come to the conference each year, and each year, we’re so crazy to hang out with each other that, at the last minute, we plan parties and after-conference events. We go for dinner, we go for drinks, we go to hang out.

I would like to buy a bunch of taxi cards so that people who have been drinking can see me for a taxi card. Whether they’re going home, to a hotel, wherever, I want to make sure my fab friends--new and old--get around safely.

We're sorry we can't accommodate everybody's needs, but we've only got so much cash in the bank!

UPDATE: Error! Error! Will Robinson! Sorry, made an error. Busy morning. Error fixed. Blame a hanging chad, or something.

Yep, we're back for a third time. We've had so much fun for the past two years, we figured we'd do it again.

You can expect a format similar to last year, with a Moose Camp on Friday and a more traditional conference setup on Saturday (here's last year's schedule).

We're changing venues in 2007. Unfortunately, due to increased demand on the UBC Robson Square space, we're unable to use it. We surveyed previous attendees on alternatives, and the response was pretty clear:

• We want a conference.
• We'd prefer a bigger rather than smaller event.
• Price is more important than location.

So, Northern Voice will be held at UBC's lovely main campus, about 30 minutes west of downtown. We're still sorting out which space we'll use out there, but we've got ours eyes on a pretty cool venue.

As for dates, we're looking at mid to late February again. There will be more on both exact location and dates as soon as possible.

In the meantime, we've opened up speaker submissions for 2007. For more information and to submit your speaker proposal, visit our Speaker Submissions page.