A quick post to cover off a few things in my orbit:
After four or five years of indifference, we launched a new version of Capulet’s website, designed by our friends at Giant Ant Media. I wrote a blog post over at Capulet’s dusty blog about the relaunch. It features some in-progress sketches, and our thinking behind the site’s aesthetic.
I’m making slow but steady progress in my plan to live Canadian in 2011. My current search is for Canadian-made shoes, both of the running and hiking varieties. There was a piece about the project in the Vancouver Sun today. The photo is rather undignified.
I stepped back from the Northern Voice organizing committee this year, but I’m helping to organize the Non-Profit Expo that we’ve held for the past couple of years. We run a kind of small trade show for non-profits, enabling them to set up tables and talk to attendees on Saturday afternoon. Do you work for or know of a non-profit or charity? Apply here.
Thanks to Mongrel Media, I have, oh, about 40 movie passes to a screening of One Week (caution: auto-playing video ahead), a most Canadian movie starring Joshua Jackson. Here’s the trailer:
Gordon Downie, Tofino and the Stanley Cup? Most Canadian movie ever. Incidentally, is that an actual NHL player at about 1:50? I don’t recognize him.
The film also features the lovely and talented Liane Balaban. I first saw her in New Waterford Girl, a really charming Nova Scotian film. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth a look.
Mr. Jackson, I should add, has done an admirable job of sustaining and bolstering a career that could have died with final episode of “Dawson’s Creek”.
The screening is at the Scotiabank Theatre on Thursday, March 5th at 7:00pm. If you want a couple of free passes, come find me at Northern Voice.
First, a heartfelt thank-you to all of the Northern Voice sponsors, from this year and the past four. Without you, the average conference ticket would be at least twice what it is today.
The conference needs just one more sponsor. From our esteemed sponsor wrangler:
We’re looking for our last NV headline sponsor to sponsor the NV party at the $3000 level. We are planning an upscale dinner party on the Thursday night (more details to be announced soon) and are looking for a sponsor to be the headline sponsor for this event. Your sponsorship would go towards subsidizing the cost of dinner tickets, so that it’s affordable for attendees. This party is always well attended and we’re sure it will sell out, just as the conference has.
Times are tough, but here’s a way for an organization to be a shining star in the country’s biggestsecond-biggestthird-biggest (I just checked, and Mathewtold me that Mesh had 450 people last year) social media conference.
This year’s Northern Voice conference–the fifth one–pretty much sold out in three days. Tickets for Friday’s unconference lasted longer than Saturday, but certainly not much longer. And the wait list for each day is, by my guess, nearing fifty people. That happened with no marketing at all, besides blog posts and tweets from the organizers.
I have mixed feelings about that result. It’s terrific that the conference is so popular–it’s an affirmation that people really dig the event. But by virtue of that popularity (and despite its $60 price tag), the event has become kind of exclusive. If you’re not on Twitter or jacked in to the local blogosphere, you probably missed the boat on registering.
In years past, we’ve tried, when possible, to encourage noobies to attend the event. Last year (and I gather something similar is happening this year) there was a kind of Social Media 101 series on the Friday specifically for those who are new to this world. However, when the conference sells out so quickly, a bunch of those folks (and a bunch of connected, bloggy people too) can’t come. And that kind of sucks.
What To Do?
I’ve said for the past couple of years that we could double the capacity–from about 350 to 700–and still sell out. That’s never appealed, though, because an event that size would be pretty unwieldy. There would have to be huge or many rooms, more sponsors and considerably more infrastructure.
Organizer James and I were chatting last night, and discussed the possibility of making the event biannual. It happens during the spring reading break out at UBC, and could also easily happen during the fall one. If we did that, the association (Northern Voice went non-profit last year) would probably have to hire an event manager, because the volunteer organizers are all busy people stretched too thin as it is.
But I’m not sure that would actually solve the problem. I think most of the attendees who came to ‘Northern Voice Spring’ would also register for a ‘Northern Voice Fall’.
Or maybe not. Maybe doubling the number of conferences would, say, bring 250 people to each and normalize, at least in the short to medium term, the supply-demand imbalance.
It’s a nice problem to have, but one that becomes more pressing each year. Then again, maybe this social media stuff will die off in the next year or two, and Northern Voice 2012 will only have 59 attendees.
What do you think? Should we worry about too much demand and not enough supply of the moose?
UPDATE: Frequent Northern Voice attendee Mack posted his thoughts on the same topic.
Just a quick note to say that this year’s Northern Voice organizers have kicked the doors open for registration. The conference has sold out for the past three years, and we’ve had to turn away disappointed people, so act now. Or, you know, forever hold your peace. And don’t forget to buy a t-shirt. They’re reportedly a lovely claret red.
If you’ve never been to Northern Voice before, you should go. I’m biased, but it’s one of my favourite conferences of the year. I’m fond of its laid back mood and non-corporate focus, and we’ve been lucky to have really terrific speakers over the years. If you don’t believe me, just ask Google.
UPDATE: 126 people signed up on the first day of registration. That’s more than a third of the way to capacity, so if you’re interested in going, register sooner rather than later.
Once again, Northern Voice is sold out. I always find it a little remarkable when that happens, as we have a marketing budget of precisely zero dollars and zero cents. Plus, all of us organizers are busy people. We barely have enough time to organize the conference essentials, let alone promote it.
In any case, we’re four for four for sell outs.
In related news, check out the cool poster than artist Basco5 did for the conference this year:
Just a quick note to say that we’re down to about 45 spots left for Northern Voice, and they’re going fast. The event will definitely sell out. So if you haven’t registered yet, you should go ahead and do so.
As we’re in Morocco, Julie and I are taking a back seat on organization for Northern Voice this year. I’m helping out where I can remotely, and one of the things I’m doing is organizing a new feature of the conference for 2008. This time around we’re adding a little tech non-profits expo
The plan is to provide about a half-dozen tables on the Saturday where tech-oriented organizations can set up a booth and talk to attendees. We’d ask organizations to agree to run their booths from 9:30am to 1:30pm, though they’re welcome to stay longer.
It will be free for the organizations, and they’ll get a chance to engage with 300-350 social media and blogging types.
I’ve sent out some invitations, and we’ve already got a couple of organizations signed up, but I wanted to put the call out for other suggestions. Do you know an organization that fits the bill?
