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A number of people asked me yesterday what I learned at the conference, and I had a hard time answering, not because I didn’t learn anything but because the things I learned were a bunch of small things rather than one large thing. Small things are sometimes harder to articulate. In some cases it wasn’t so much not knowing about a thing but being reminded of a thing I’d forgotten.
What I Learned on Day One:
1. Flickr.com: A reminder that at the bottom of the page you can create an RSS feed for a tag.
2. Upcoming.org: Didn’t know about this cool event website and now I have to remember on Jan 20 to go to the podcasting meet-up at the Beatty St. Bar and Grill.
3. Last.fm: Didn’t know I could listen to all sorts of great music.
4. DLA: Digital Lifestyle Aggregator. Who makes up this stuff?
5. MySpace.com: Patrick Brealey and the Knives are on MySpace.
6. I have invisibility powers and mind control. It’s true, ask Kris.
7. Allconsuming.net: Appears to pull data from Amazon.com, clever idea for something else I’m working on.
8. Odeo.com and Audioblog.com: Knew about it before but got to see it in action.
9. Statcounter.com: Didn’t know about this great free tool.
10. Lee LeFever should write for Lonely Planet. It’s true the world is not flat. And his user network for suggesting countries to visit is a very cool idea.
11. Will Pate. Need I say more? Ok, a bit more, his blog aggregates everything he writes anywhere on the web. I want that.
12. Vonage: Podcasting dealy-o with VoIP.
13. Blogroll with Bloglines: I knew I could do this, but I didn’t quite get why I’d want to use Bloglines to do it. Now, I understand. I can put the Bloglines blogroll on my blog and it will show all the public feeds I read.
14. John thinks Jackie Pittigliani has cool photos on Flickr.com. Some I like.
15. I should MooseCamp an idea I’m working on.
16. ShoZoo. Ronald Shozu. Roland has a Nokia with shozu and he can automatically upload photos to Flickr.
UPDATE: Shozu not ShoZoo. Shazam. Also my humble apologies. It is Roland not Ronald. I did that a couple of times in my head and thought I’d cured myself completely. Not the case. Roland Roland Roland down the dogsledding trail.
17. Yarnharlot.ca. Knit away my friend.
18. It is -26 C, which is 23 degrees different than Vancouver temperature right now, and 23 negative degrees more than I’m comfortable with.
Kris Krug was just demonstrating MySpace.com and as he was doing that I thought, Patrick Brealey needs to be on MySpace, then I searched and there he was. Patrick rocks my world. Have a listen.
The challenge going to blogging conferences with bloggers is that they are snap-happy-camera fiends. Within seconds of meeting Lee LeFever, for example, I appeared on Flickr.
The great Roland was also in on the action.
Lee takes photos of Roland taking photos … See what I mean. It’s an endless mise-en-scene. Then we all talk about metadata. Metadata within metanarrative. The postmodernists go wild.
CTV Canada AM reported this morning that the Tories have podcasts up on their site and the Liberals are blogging. Perhaps they’ll show up at the Blogs n Dogs session today.
http://www.technorati.com/tag/blogsndogs
Altitude: Please be aware that Banff’s elevation is approximately 1,384 metres (4,540 feet) … you may experience fatigue, shortness of breath and/or dizziness.
It has nothing to do with being out of shape. See how awesome this place is.
Other wonderful things include the recycling bins in my room, the SmartSaver lightbulbs, and the guy in the box outside my window playing violin.
Check out the music hut. I’d guess it is 6-8 foot cube.
http://www.banffcentre.ca/music/facilities/
I’m a bit distracted by all the cool things and I should be working on an outstanding proposal. Outstanding in that it is incomplete rather than exceedingly brilliant.
“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.” (Saint Augustine)
I’m on my way to Banff tomorrow for the Blog n Dogs conference. I have borrowed snow pants. I have located my winter shoes. I’m still searching for more appropriate outerwear. My wee wool coat is not going to do it.
Suggestions on braving the cold?
I have been waiting for this book: The Imagined City: A Literary History of Winnipeg, edited by David Arnason and Mhari Mackintosh. There was an announcement in today’s Winnipeg Free Press that Arnason will be at the Millennium Library Tuesday evening for the release of the book.
The event begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Carol Shields Auditorium on the second floor.
A lot of crazy stuff happened in Winnipeg.
Arnason was my thesis advisor at the University of Manitoba. He came out drinking with the grad students and told fantastic stories. I like retelling the stories but I often get the details confused. For example, I never met Al Purdy, but Arnason did. David Arnason. I like telling this story as my own. But it’s not.
Arnason told me Purdy arrived at the University of Manitoba as a visiting professor sometime in the 70s. Purdy left everything in B.C., including his wife. He brought only a few possessions and furnished the apartment with a mattress and some pots and pans that were scrounged up by grad students.
Purdy lived just off campus in Summerland Apartments. He liked socializing with profs and students. They hung around, drinking, and sat on the mattress or the floor. Purdy stocked the cupboard with bean cans and bottles of rye.
Arnason told me Purdy rinsed out the bean cans and used them as glasses. The saving grace was Purdy passed them around half full of rye.
Arnason told these stories as a distraction. He sometimes offered stories in lieu of critical feedback on my thesis. My essays and revisions came back with a check mark or, well-written pieces, a ìgood.î
Arnason says Purdy once called him in the middle of the night. Purdy didnít care about etiquette or the time of day. He commanded that Arnason come over and read the poem he just finished. Arnason had a wife. He lived outside Winnipeg city limits, in St. Norbert. Purdy presented a problem.
Arnason arrived at Purdyís. I imagine he looked tentative, peered at Purdy from the doorway. Purdy offered Arnason a bean can and then waited in anticipation as Arnason read the manuscript. When Arnason finished reading, he handed it back to Purdy. ìItís good.î
Arnason appreciates the economy of words.
ìGood,î was Purdyís indignant reply. ìItís great! Read it again.î
I just spent 10 minutes on a Kick Ass posting about what’s going on in the publishing world. Then the computer froze. I was under the illusion that my posts were “quick saved” as I typed. This is not the case. Now I’m dreadfully late for a post-birthday cake eating date. So instead of Kick Ass you have Half Assed.
The vague recollection of the post is as follows. Lots of cool things happening in publishing, no time to talk, here it is:
Read this article on Berrett-Koehler. Total eye opener in terms of a kick ass business model for book publishing.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/100/berrett-koehler.html
Listen to Patricia Storm on CBC Radio talking books on Cross Country Check-up
http://cbc.ca/checkup/archives.html
And House of Anansi launched a podcast today.
http://www.anansi.ca/podcast/apod.xml
Really, my first post was 4 million times better and I’m not exaggerating.
For a stunning example of half-finished web design, visit the Canadian Blog Awards page and vote for So Misguided.
Round 1 voting has started for the 2005 Canadian Blog Awards.
So Misguided is nominated in the Best New Blog category and the Best Culture Blog category. Vote for Pedro! No, I mean vote for me by selecting the category and then So Misguided.
The Polling Stations are open until Wednesday November 30th.
Friday December 2nd, 12pm EST: Round One results will be announced.
Then I solicit your votes a second time, seems rather tedious:
Saturday December 3rd – Friday December 9th: Round Two voting.
Sunday December 11th, 9pm EST: Round Two results will be announced.
Voting Instructions
Vote once, every day. So Misguided for president.
Don’t pay too much attention to the voting results. It is crap. You’ll see what I mean. And where do LinkFour and LinkFive go?