October 22nd, 2009, No Comments »
In our UBC course last Monday, we wanted to teach the students a lesson about real-time collaboration. We divided them into groups of four and assigned them the following tasks:
- You’re going to create a soup recipe. Collectively, decide what kind of soup you’re going to write about.
- Each of you works on a different section of the recipe. One person lists ingredients, another writes the procedure, a third writes a review of the soup and the fourth finds links to other similar soups.
- Open up a Google Docs document and start working.
- After you’ve all contributed, review each other’s work and make changes and corrections.
It went surprisingly well–we achieved five apparently tenable (and all vegetarian, as it happens) soup recipes. Here’s what they came up with:
I can’t really vouch for the quality of the recipes, but I thought I’d share nonetheless.
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February 25th, 2009, No Comments »
We just finished up our second UBC class on social media marketing. I will be glad to have possibly two whole weeks where we don’t leave Victoria. We’re probably going to teach the course again in the fall.
In any case, I wanted to share a couple of artifacts from the class. First, we used a wiki page to assemble a list of questions that people in the class wanted answered.
Additionally, we bookmarked a bunch of links on Delicious (because, sadly, Ma.gnolia suffered a meltdown). These are a combination of examples we used in class and additional resources that we thought the students might find useful. I thought I’d share, in case there was something in the 60-odd links that appealed. I’ve embedded the most recent six below, and the rest are over on Delicious.
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February 25th, 2009, 17 Comments »
I recently wrote in praise of Salt Spring Island Coffee. So I was happy to patronize their charming UBC location during Northern Voice. I was a little less praiseful, though, after read the sleeve on my hot chocolate:
In case you can’t read it, here’s what it says:
This cup travelled over 2000 kilometers from the forest to your lips. Slow global warming by using a travel mug.
Here’s how I read that:
We’re entirely comfortable selling you an environmentally insensitive product, but want you to feel guilty about giving us your money. Plus, [as filmgoerjuan points out on Flickr] we’ve been unwilling or unable to find a more sustainable source for cups.
I suppose this cheeky chastisement might work with the UBC crowd, but I think it just redirects blame away from the coffee shop to the consumer.
I was going to leave a suggestion in their suggestion box, until I saw this:
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February 22nd, 2009, 5 Comments »
On Friday, @granvillemag made the common observation that Robert looks more than a little like Philip Seymour Hoffman. Robert and Maryam came up for this year’s Northern Voice.
That comparison reminded me that I’d had the same thought when I met Robert back in 2004. At the time Boris generously invited me to a kind of impromptu geek lunch in Yaletown. Robert and Maryam were there, as were Tim and Lauren, Stewart, Cal, Roland (hey, I like the new theme). I met all of them for the first time. As it happens, we talked about how Vancouver could host a conference about this ‘weblogging’ thing. Northern Voice was borne over Thai food.
I mention all of those folks not to be a name-dropping douchebag, but to highlight my favourite thing about Northern Voice: the vibe. I think the conference maintains a lot of the easy, inclusive attitude of that day. I attend a lot of formal and informal events, and Northern Voice seems to strike a happy medium of sufficiently organized chaos. I can’t say for sure, but I get the sense that that (dare I say it?) energy makes it easy to meet new people, and hopefully diminishes some of the social barriers that exist at other events.
Almost everybody at that lunch attended this year’s Northern Voice. Maybe that’s a reflection of the current conference’s comfortable atmosphere?
I think Gnomedex was probably a big influence on Northern Voice’s vibe, as several early organizers had previously attended Chris’s great events. They have a similar feeling of a level, open playing field. I’d also give some credit to the conference venue. The Forest Sciences Centre has a gorgeous atrium and seating area that encourages casual interaction.
The Best Northern Voice Yet
A couple of people I spoke to said that this version of Northern Voice was the best one yet. I’d tend to agree. A big congratulations to the organizers who did a great job with everything, from recruiting sponsors in difficult times to building a really strong speaker lineup. A few observations that struck me about the weekend:
- The conference is so much more diverse than it was five years ago. In the first year, I remember that the crowd was 80% male. This year we did a quick count and it turned out to be about 55% male, 45% female. It’s a sausage party no longer. I have no proof of this, but it also feels more diverse in terms of the age and ethnicity of attendees.
- When one of the organizers asked “how many people are new to the conference this year”, at least 60% or 70% of those in the audience put up their hand. That’s really terrific, not what I expected, and probably reflective of Northern Voice’s popularity problem.
- There were some sponsor prizes to give away, so I helped Travis devise some fiendish, space-specific trivia questions to ask using the Northern Voice Twitter account. My favourite question was “how many mustachioed men were in the 1948 Forestry program graduating class?” The graduating class portraits were hung on the walls of the building, so you had to hunt the right one down. Surprisingly, the correct answer was “two”.
I happened to notice that the registration list for PodCamp Toronto is about 850 people long. They’ve obviously got a much larger population base to draw upon, but I can imagine that Northern Voice could be nearly that big if it wanted to be. I think that’s the most important question going forward: how big does the conference want to be?
Photo by John Biehler
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January 11th, 2009, No Comments »
I’ve been meaning to mention that Julie and I are teaching a couple of social media courses for UBC Continuing Ed. They’re each three-hour sessions over three Mondays, for a total of nine class hours. Here are the course descriptions:
Introduction to Social Media
This introductory course provides an overview of social media: its history, theories and the principles behind online communication. Through hands-on demonstration of a variety of social media tools including YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, RSS, wikis and social bookmarking, you discover how these tools are shaping modern communication and how to incorporate them into everyday business and personal communications. Topics also include upcoming trends as well as predictions for what’s next in social media.
Social Media for Marketing
Adding social media into the marketing mix is increasingly important for marketers who want to establish an online presence for their businesses. In this course, you learn how to incorporate social media tools like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, social bookmarking and web monitoring tools into your overall marketing strategies and tactics. We discuss the dos and don’ts of social media marketing; look at successful marketing campaigns; introduce the social media tools every marketer should know about; and cover online communications etiquette. Students are asked to develop ideas for a social media marketing campaign of their own.
Friends Susie and Rochelle are also teaching courses in the program.
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January 7th, 2009, 2 Comments »
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.
Photo by Duane Storey.
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.
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