I’m slowly recovering from the whirlwind that was Northern Voice this year (I’m one of the organisers). All our hard work paid off, we had the usual last-minute glitches but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, to make new friends and contacts, to learn new things, to discuss issues they care about, and to have fun.
On Friday I spent most of my time on the registration desk, apart from introducing the conference and listening to Stewart Butterfield’s keynote. Saturday was a little different; I made it to lots of sessions (both keynotes, Aidrie’s panel, my own panel, bits and pieces of other talks/panels). What I took away from all was a sense of community, a sense that the people attending are truly interested in sharing their knowledge and experiences, in being genuine. Even though some blog from a purely personal standpoint, and others from a professional, there was discussion about how to be genuine, how to show who you are within whatever limits you find reasonable (some people blog about their children, others don’t, for example). I’m looking forward to watching the videos of the sessions I didn’t manage to make it to; we only had three sessions concurrently but lots of good topics. The energy in the whole space was amazing.
Saturday night after we got home, we found Vancouver was in the top ten for two trending Twitter topics: Northern Voice and the Canucks. As someone tweeted (sorry, can’t find it now), that really shows that Vancouver people understand how to use these tools for communication. I feel proud, as one of the organisers of Northern Voice, to do my little bit to help, by giving people who care about these things an opportunity to get together and discuss them. And it’s fun – at a Serious Conference we could never get away with putting out a basket of yarn and telling people to make their own lanyards (yes, we had some of those white elastic things for those uncomfortable with the notion). Lots of people gravitated to the bright fluffy stuff, or used multiple strands, creating their own bit of wearable art. And then there was the Moose collection — Rahel Baillie donated her collection of moose as a fund-raiser for the conference, so we had these moose statues and ties and kitsch spread over one corner of the registration desk. Again, not something you can do at a Serious Conference. Which doesn’t mean to say we didn’t talk about serious topics, there were lots of those, and lots of discussion about them.
I’m already looking forward to next year’s Northern Voice.
