Yesterday was Northern Voice 2006: Canada’s blogging conference. James and I attended and it was great to see our blogging friends and geek out a bit. The day opened with Julie Leung speaking about why stories are essential and how to blog effective tales. Next up was Dave Sifry and Tim Bray’s musings on the blogosphere. Apparently a new weblog is created every second of every day. Over 50% of new blogs are still active after 3 months.

Other sessions I attended were
Susannah Gardner‘s I’m Too Sexy for My Blog: Blog Design for Everyone.
Susannah is the author of Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies, a book for business professionals looking for advice and solutions for business blogging. You can get a discount of all Dummies books instore at Chapters/Indigo this month. I highly recommend this book.

I also attended
The Changing Face of Journalism with Mark Schneider, Robert Ouiment and Michael Tippett
Eric Rice’s Everything Casting: Podcasting and Vlogging for the Masses

I wanted to Geek Out with Kevin Marks, Robert Scoble and Will Pate. And I was interested in Five Ways Your Blog Can Change the World, but my back was breaking. I worked really hard last week and to add on a 2-day conference was perhaps a bit much.

Here’s to taking a break.

Friday was Moose Camp. What’s Moose Camp? Well, it’s like Bar Camp. Which is?

Ok, have you ever sat around in a bar and tried to pitch someone on an idea and you started drawing it out on the back of a napkin? Have you ever come up with the perfect solution to some problem while you were sitting around with your friends? That would be bar camp, moose camp, whatever.

My first session was Edubloggerhootenanny.

Edubloggerhootenanny
Alan Levine, D’Arcy Norman, Scott Leslie, and Brian Lamb were the conversation facilitators. The session was mostly for educators who are using blogs as teaching tools. It seemed to me that there are two types: those working with K-12 and those working with university and college students. Many of the issues are the same though: do you prescribe blogging, how do you deal with students who must submit blog work in multiple classes, how do you grade participation, etc.

Here are my random thoughts on edublogging:

Educators should view blogging as blog reading and blog writing. Not just blog writing.

In a classroom setting, the first step in introducing blogging could be reading blogs then discussing how to filter what is “true”, what isn’t; why do we think one voice has authority over others; how do we understand what we read; what narratives do we create from reading others.

Discussion. Remember blogs are about conversation.

Blogging should be incorporated the same way extracurricular reading is.

Give students the tools to understand how to find sites they enjoy, how to read and judge validity or authority, how to use critical thinking skills, and how to respond to the stories we read.

Real Time Reporting with Now Public
Next session was Real Time Reporting with Now Public. Michael Tippett gave a good presentation on NowPublic.com, which is about sharing the news. He demonstrated how the site works and what things you can do as a citizen journalist. The site looked cool and seemed easy to use.

AJAX for Geeks
It was that kind of day.

I enjoyed AJAX for Geeks with Dave Johnson. There was code on the screen.

AJAX is all about the page refresh. You no longer need it. For example, when you are filling out a form and you incorrectly enter your password, the page is sent to the server, the server returns the error, and your entire screen needs to refresh in order to show the error message. With AJAX that doesn’t happen. Just small amounts of data flow back and forth, not the full page. With AJAX, the error message just appears on the screen.

Flickr and Google Maps are AJAX examples.

Structured Blogging and Microformats
Structured Blogging and Microformats with Bryan Rieger was in the afternoon. The basic idea is that a web post is like a block. As we produce more and more posts, they act as more and more little blocks. The thing you cannot do with a block is distinguish whether it is a text musing or an event listing or an image. If there were tags within the post that defined, for example, an event title, the event description, the event time and place, then you could do more with that information. For example, if you came across an event listing, instead of copying and pasting it into your calendar, you could somehow just one click import it.

It makes more sense to think of these types of posts and metadata as better for machines rather than humans, but there were arguments in favour of the human use.

Podcasting and Video Blogging
Podcasting and Video Blogging was presented by Robert Sanzalone. He told the group about DailyMotion.com, which apparently is the best video blogging site. You can upload your videos and it transcodes them and makes them available for download in multiple formats.

1 Minute Movie
Roland created a 1 Minute Movie with Photo to Movie, which costs $50 US and is better and easier than iMovie.

Photocamp
Although my descriptions of the sessions are getting shorter, this does not reflect my interest or enthusiasm for these sessions. I’m merely exhausted from the 2 days.

Back to Photocamp … it was a freeform discussion about photos at Photocamp with Kris Krug.

I now need to figure out the cool boost colour effect for my camera. We discussed aperture.

DabbleDB
DabbleDB.com demo. We created a database on the fly. The functions are really cool. Love the product but the import function was lacking and I’m skeptical about the export. As a tool though, really interesting and very very likeable.

In a side conversation, I learned that GMail and GTalk are beautifully linked and I need to dust off the GMail account.

Leadership Hacks
David Sifry of Technorati talked about leadership. It’s all about passion, the team, leading not managing, developing other leaders, preparing for scalability traps, back of the napkining it, remembering it’s a business not a clubhouse, vision + execution, failing fast and being of service.

After all of that I stumbled along to the evening BBQ in Stanley Park and ate 2 Chips Ahoy cookies, which, yes mom, did spoil my dinner.

All in all, a great day.

The Moose is totally loose!

Northern Voice unofficially starts tonight. In mere minutes, Chris Pirillo and Ponzi Indharasophangi will be taping The Chris Pirillo Show live at Take 5 Cafe at 429 Granville from 6-8p.m.

They want a live audience of Northern Voicers — I hope to make it down there before 8.
Here’s the post from NORTHERN VOICE.

Moose Camp is tomorrow and then Northern Voice: Canada’s Blogging Conference is Saturday.

Is there anyone who doesn’t have a ticket and would like to go? I might have one extra.

UPDATE: The ticket is spoken for.

BigSnit has tagged me with Four Things. So let’s see here:

Four movies I can watch over and over:
1. Miller’s Crossing, but really anything from the Coen brothers, including O Brother Where Art Thou
2. The Postman Always Rings Twice or any other classic film noir
3. The Big Snit, which is a funny coincidence, isn’t it Robert?
4. The Fast and the Furious or Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon: if there’s a good car chase or sword fight, I’m willing to ignore any other faults.

Four places I have lived:
1. St. Boniface, MB (which is really part of #2)
2. Winnipeg, MB
3. Bogota, Colombia (where I lived for 2 months in 1997)
4. Vancouver, BC

Four television shows I love to watch (ON DVD):
1. The Office
2. Six Feet Under (which I have never seen but look at longingly in the video store)
3. The Hour or The Daily Show
4. Top Gear, if they had it on DVD

Four places I have been on vacation:
1. St. Lucia
2. Havana
3. Istanbul
4. Sorento, Australia to see fairy penguins

Four of my favorite dishes:
1. Butter Chicken
2. James’ braised lamb
3. Gamma’s perogies
4. really good goat curry or amazing dark chocolate (had to throw a dessert in there)

Four websites I visit daily:
1. DarrenBarefoot.com
2. BookLust
3. Drawn
4. TwinF (The world is not Flat)

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. snorkelling in Greece for octopus
2. shopping in London, UK
3. skiing with James and Craig in Whistler
4. basking in sunlight anywhere, although Fiji would be nice

Four bloggers I am tagging:
1. Crazy at Well Dunn Photography
2. Melissa because she needs to blog more
3. David, who I met at the podcaster meetup
4. Lue because she’s new to blogging

On Sunday James and I explored the Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary. There are a lot of ducks there and a couple of nasty cranes.

For the full birding experience, my photos are on Flickr.com.

Last night was the first Vancouver podcaster meetup. It was at the Beatty St Bar & Grill, which I must say had minimal food options for one fish/seafood allergy-prone attendee. Aside from that the Stella came in a big glass and that was good.

The conversation turned at one point to Darren Barefoot’s absence. He was not detained at any border this time, instead he’s down with “flu-like symptoms.” In between discussing microphones and favourite podcasts, we debated the meaning of “flu-like symptoms.” Is it not just the flu? James pointed out that Darren is likely taking the piss. Flu-medication ads always mention “flu-like symptoms” rather than the flu. James also pointed out that weather broadcasters no longer talk about the weather. They talk about “weather events.” So Darren Barefoot is under the weather with flu-like symptoms and stayed home, which is likely best since we’re having a winter storm weather event.

But we did not discuss Darren all night.

I sat at a table with John of Audihertz.net. He has a podcast called Radio Zoom, which you can find on Podcastdirectory.com. I checked it out this morning and I like the music he plays so I’ll subscribe for awhile and see if he becomes a permanent fixture in my listening world. The fun thing about John is that he’s an American living in Canada. His podcast is music based but the personal side is what he describes as “just doing my best to give you more insight on what it’s like to be a boy from Iowa, living in the land of Canada.”

David of Loud Murmurs was also at my table. David, like John, is one of these fabled Americans who left his blue-gone-red state to come to red-gone-blue Canada. He has a background in classical music and is thinking of starting a classical music podcast. He wants to put classical music into context–something like, “listen to this, and this is why it’s important” or really cool. Sounds like something I’d like.

Other folks I met with podcasts are Ted Riecken of IslandPodcasting.com, which is a podcast show about life on Vancouver Island. Exploring culture, natural history and events on the Island. I also met Derek K. Miller of Podcast.penmachine.com, who’s a musician and offers instrumental podcasts. Derek is also podcasting the meetings for the BC branch of the Editors’ Association of Canada. Listen to the EAC meetings. And of course, Tod Maffin, organizer of the podcast meetup.

Things I didn’t know about before:
Daily Breakfast with Father Roderick from CatholicInsider.com.
Quirky Nomads, the story of a family that said, “if the Republicans get any worse, we’re moving to Canada.” And then? They really did. (This is my favourite of the previously unknowns.)
And, Spamusement.com. Poorly drawn cartoons inspired by actual spam subject lines.

Tod Maffin, self-described overcaffeinated public radio producer, author, podcaster and technology futurist, is offering a non-fiction storytelling seminar for independent producers, freelancers, writers and people who want to get into radio.

That’s me. And maybe you too?

Check out Tod’s site for details: TodMaffin.com. The seminar is called ìFrom Idea to Air.î The admission is by donation and Tod is giving 100% of any donations made to the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada. As Tod mentions in his post, he is trying to raise $5,000 to help his wife’s fundraising efforts (she was diagnosed with MS just over a year ago).

If you’re not interested in the seminar but want to donate to MS, here is Tod’s link, MSSociety.ca.

I heart radio.

How would you like to be a salmon researcher poking around in your small submarine when a giant octopus decides that you’re either cute or dinner?

Mike Wood’s remote-controlled submarine was working on the Brooks Peninsula in BC last November when a giant Pacific octopus weighing about 45 kilograms decided to attack. It sounds like Mike wasn’t in the sub, but he panicked nonetheless because the $20,000 piece of equipment was uninsured. Mike’s sub got away because he blasted the octopus with seabed particles.

I’m partial to sea creatures even though it creeps me out to be underwater.

Here’s Mike’s video on Seaeye.com.
Here’s the full CBC story on CBC.ca

And here’s a fantastic book, The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch. My favourite book of 2005. Lots of description about sea creatures, Rachel Carson is channelled, wonderful book.

Lisa Moore wins regional Commonwealth Prize: See CBC.ca

“Canadian writer Lisa Moore’s debut novel Alligator has been named best book for the Caribbean and Canada region, making it a finalist for the 2006 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.”

Gabriel Garcia Marquez gives up the pen–retired: See Times Online

Aside from One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera and Chronicle of a Death Foretold are two of my favourite Marquez novels.