Northern Voice 2007

Heading out to my second day of Northern Voice 2007, a blogging conference hosted here in Vancouver by a group of incredibly bright, passionate people -- and being attended by same. My head was spinning yesterday as I considered everything I learned and heard (not always one and the same, unfortunately) and all the amazing people I met.

Day One was called Moosecamp and billed itself as an "unconference", meaning that volunteers came forward with ideas for sessions and pitched them first thing in the morning, and the group itself scheduled them throughout the day. Sounds chaotic, but it worked brilliantly. Not all sessions were brilliant, mind you, but the best more than made up for the so-so. Most useful to me: a session on getting sound right in podcasting (with a reference to an incredible new FREE tool called the Levelator that I'm going to be downloading first thing Monday morning at work); an open discussion on community identity; and a presentation on search engine optimization for blogging by Alexandre Brabant, a super-bright and passionate guy behind eMarketing 101. Incredibly useful stuff. More today.

Oh and the New York trip is off. I'm bummed, but in the end was the one who actually made the call. We're launching our first mini-site next week and it would be crazy if I weren't around. Next year, I guess.