This weekend I presented a quick “Who, What, When, Where, Why” of blogging and online branding for the Travel Media Association of Canada. The conference took place at the brand new Pinnacle Pier in North Vancouver and had a spectacular view of Vancouver from across the inlet. Unfortunately I couldn’t setup my shiny new Epson projector (due to the shining sun through the un-treated floor to ceiling windows) so I did the talk unassisted. I did however promise participants that I would post my slides on Slideshare regardless.

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This is my presentation pack from Slideshare in case you would like to view any of my recent slide decks from speaking engagements. The one for TMAC does not have accompanying sound but I’ll try to make it a slidecast in the near future. Enjoy!

John and I have been attending Canada’s largest blogging conference, Northern Voice, since 2007 and each year we’ve contributed liveblogs, podcasts, and been speakers in our own sessions or on the panel.

John speaking at Northern Voice. Credit: John Biehler

This year, I will be on two panels with some amazing individuals.

Who are you? Defining yourself in the online world
Panelists: Jenn Lowther, Rebecca Bollwitt [sixty4media and Miss604], Linda Bustos, and Nadia Nascimento

The panel will discuss the various social networking sites that can be utilized to build your brand online, and identify advantages and pitfalls of these sites, their usage, and their relationship to one another. During the discussion, they will provide context for the growing significance of social networking for personal brands, as we discuss the paths each of us took in order to build our personal online reputations.

Dealing with angry comments, Trolls, Spammers, and Sock Puppets
Panelists: David Eaves, Rebecca Bollwitt

The entire Northern Voice schedule can be found here along with information about the amazing keynotes including Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of Flickr.

The conference is sold out on both Friday, February 20th and Saturday February 21st, however plenty of conversations will be happening on Twitter and I will be liveblogging several of the sessions.

This past weekend sixty4media co-hosted WordCamp Whistler alongside Brave New Code. We had originally planned for 50 people and we ended up getting over 100 attendees joining us for the weekend for a day of talks about WordPress and online publishing.

Keynote Lorrelle Van Fossen (aka Lorelle on WordPress)
Dave Olson (Topic, Are you Worthy?)
John Biehler (Topic, How To Sex Up Your Blog With Photos And Video)
Dale Mugford (Topic, WordPress On The Go)
Andy Peatling (Topic, BuddyPress)
Quentin Mulhurt (Topic, WordPress and Search Engine Optimization)
Morten Rand-Hendriksen (Topic, Using WordPress In Alternate Configurations)
Tris Hussey (Topic, Using WordPress as a Generic Content Management system (CMS))

We were very please with the location and the accommodations, while the attendance, input, insights, and presentations exceeded expectations. We definitely look forward to doing this again next year.

You can read the live notes on the WordCamp Whistler website that John setup and I also have a few day blogs up on Miss604.com.

Today I’ll be speaking at the Making a Scene Conference on Granville Island. This annual event provides presentations, workshops, and panels about the professional theatre industry. I was asked to sit on a panel, “The New Face of Marketing”, to hopefully address questions about blogger outreach and online marketing.

Making a Scene runs from November 13th until the 16th, passes start at around $75.00.

After several successful WordCamps in Vancouver, Kulpreet got the wheels in motion for the next event, coming this winter. Last night on Twitter something magical also happened – the idea of having the event in Whistler was hatched and so planning for WordCamp Whistler is now underway.

Read Duane’s blog post for a preview, view the Facebook event, and feel free to sign up on the wiki. More details to come in over the next little while. sixty4media will once again be involved as an organizer as well as presenting.

WordPress is an open source blog publishing application powering millions of blogs worldwide.

Tonight great and curious minds will be gathering at the Vancouver Rowing Club for the first, Interesting Vancouver event which, “is a multi-disciplinary conference for and by the curious and creative minds of Vancouver. Speakers come from a host of backgrounds such as sciences, academia, marketing, technology, art, and more.”

There is a line up of 15 speakers and I have the pleasure of running the live blog tonight in case you are looking for notes later on. As this is also sold out, check out Miss604.com for the coverage if you are unable to attend.

Speakers include:
Tom Williams, David Young, James Sherrett, Darren Barefoot, James Glave, James Chutter, Naomi Devine, Shannon LaBelle, Cheryl Stephens, Colin Keddie, Irwin Oostindie, Roy Yen, Jeffrey Ellis, Dr. David Ng, and Joe Solomon.

“Doors open at 6:00pm. Interestingness beings at 7:00pm sharp.”

About eight years ago Yaletown was a silicon wasteland with regular office furniture auctions held for leftover desks and office supplies from sunken tech startups. If you were aware of the technology world or the stock market at that time you probably remember this as the Canada’s version of the “dotcom crash”. Just years before there was a thriving tech community in Vancouver, and Yaletown was the startup mecca. As such, it was home to regular networking events called “Ideas on Tap”, which unfortunately also went the way of the web world stock market in 1999.

In October of 2000 I was working at the streaming media company that soon turned into the world’s largest webcaster of financial audio and this dismal time for web 1.0 actually helped my company grow (because others still had to deliver their bad news to shareholders somehow – thanks RegFD!). However Vancouver’s technological landscape had shifted from networking events with brews and good spirits into a struggling crater from which (luckily) a bigger and better scene has emerged.

The other day I was contacted by Chris Breikss of 6sMarketing to participate in an upcoming event. John and I signed on to attend yet it wasn’t until this morning that I realized it was for a resurrected Ideas on Tap.

Ideas on Tap is a light business networking event for hi-tech professionals in Vancouver plus internet advertisers, social media marketers, bloggers, video game developers and other fans of the tech community.

This free event will feature a competition where 5 contestants deliver a 60 second pitch, idea, recruiting message, or elevator pitch from a milk crate. This could be talking about their company, a start-up idea, new technology, hiring, or raising capital.

The audience will vote for their 2 favourite pitches and prizes will be awarded. The event is being held in the Yaletown Brewing Company, Vancouver’s favourite brewpub. In sticking with the theme of the venue, voting will be done by tapping beer glasses on tables or bars.

I’m pleased to be a part of this community that is once again thriving and to me, Ideas on Tap means a lot as it was something I encountered at the very beginning of my online career. Consider coming by on October 16th as we celebrate this event, the companies, and the people who have helped grow Techcouver into what it is today. Brains, Business, and Beer. The first event is October 16 at 5pm. Register Now.

I am currently at the Internet Marketing Conference in downtown Vancouver and was able to snap a shot of the sponsor slide.

We’re really excited that sixty4media is a media partner for this event and as such, you can follow my live blog at Miss604.com throughout the day today, and tomorrow.

Apologies for not promoting this event sooner, but WordCamp Fraser Valley is going on right now. In fact, Raul is up in the front of the room and giving his presentation on switching to WordPress from Blogger, so we are in full swing out here in Langley.

Rebecca is doing her best to live blog most of today’s event, so head over there to get more information.

It’s worth noting these types of events for being great places to meet other WordPress users. There is also a wealth of ideas that we find by attending gatherings like this. Whether it’s finding your voice as a blogger or discovering new tools to make your postings better, finding events like these are worth your time when it comes to wanting to find out more by what you can do with your blog.

Update: There was a question raised during Rebecca’s presentation that prompted me to make a quick blog post on my personal blog about “Designing drop down menus with CSS on WordPress“. This is something that we did for one of our clients, No Boundaries.org. If you are curious about this topic, please check out my post there.

Rebecca was invited to the Massive Tech Show this week to be on a panel regarding social media and what it can do for businesses. The annual event takes place in downtown Vancouver, and it’s pretty tough to say no to something we have such an interest in while not having to go too far to talk about it.

The Massive Technology Show is a three-part, interactive event that showcases technology for business. In one action packed day, Massive connects business professionals with high tech companies, giving them a chance to learn about technology in a user friendly environment. [massivetechshow.com]

She made a couple of posts on her personal blog here and here. You’re invited to read more of her take there.