The Moose is Loose

Northern Voice 2008 is now on the calendar – February 22-23, 2008 in Vancouver, at the UBC Main Campus at the palatial Forestry Sciences Building. This is the 4th annual event, and I’ve had the extreme pleasure to have attended each of the previous 3 years. It is my one must attend event for the year – if the only conference travel I get approved is for NV08, I’ll consider the year a success. I just filled in the official “Travel Approval Request” form, and should know if the U of C will sponsor my way in the next couple of weeks. If they pass, I’ll find another way. I’m going.

Digging through my Northern Voice photos, I realized something. This is a conference of hand-talking. That’s actually a pretty profound difference between this and many other conferences. When people are talking with hands, they aren’t rigidly stuck on a podium reading endless bullet points. They’re animated, engaged, passionate and interesting. As every single session has been. Well, with some (very) minor exceptions.

Mashups for Non Programmers 5Mashups for Non Programmers 7Mashups for Non Programmers 9John WillinskyJim Groom - More than just a blogMashups for Non Programmers 4Mashups for Non Programmers 13Stewart Mader
Kris Krug - photography session - 5Kris Krug - photography session - 6

Northern Voice has been like a nonstop, open social learning party for me, where I’ve been lucky enough to get the chance to hang out with several of my personal heroes, and jam with a considerable chunk of my blogroll. It’s pushed me to work well outside of my normal comfort zone, trying new stuff and experimenting with things. If that’s not the goal of a conference, I don’t know what is. I am so absolutely looking forward to hanging out with the folks again this year, and seeing what we come up with for a session at the conference.

Ceviche at Casa del Lamb

6 thoughts on “The Moose is Loose”

  1. So I am guessing you love it … I would like to attend. My travel schedule is brutal and my family is getting set to disown me. Is it the real deal and I guess the bigger question is — should we try and put something together to present there? Maybe the Hot Team in education or something like that? It seems we would need to do something out of the norm. Am I barking (sorry Allan) up the wrong tree?

  2. Cole, I can’t promise it’ll be as important an event for you, but it’s absolutely the real deal for me. I’d pass on EDUCAUSE and any other conference in order to be at NV. But YMMV… The conference is at least nominally about blogging, but is pretty easily stretchable to cover any Web *.0 stuff, and the edu-stuff is pretty free ranging…

  6. Pingback: Mooseward, ho! (i.e., Northern Voice 2008) - D'Arcy Norman dot net

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