We laughed, we cried, we chatted, collaborated, brainstormed, and solved problems. Northern Voice 2011 was an incredible event and I had a lot of fun. Friday morning began with a touching tribute to Derek K. Miller who was a prominent local blogger and recently lost his battle with cancer. While I never met Derek, I had read his blog and it was great to see a fitting farewell from the community—his community.

The Keynote was then given by April Smith of AHA Media. She’s a citizen journalist and long-time resident of Vancouver’s downtown Eastside. April started off sounding a tad rehearsed, but you could tell she was nervous and excited at the same time. (I can relate, I felt the same way moderating a panel, and a keynote is 10x as important).

April also brought people to tears with her passionate activism and life-changing encounters with other residents of the DTES and the issues of that community. If you have a chance, check out some of her stories and videos.

In the gorgeous naturally-lit atrium of the UBC Life Sciences Centre

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Last year I attended Northern Voice for the first time and I absolutely loved it. Northern Voice is an annual personal blogging and social media conference that is all volunteer run. I had been too shy previously to attend, even though I’d been blogging since 2001 and on Twitter since March 2008.

When I saw a tweet saying Speaker Submissions were open, I figured that I shouldn’t waste any more time being shy. I pitched a session… and it was accepted!

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Friday was the second annual BookCamp Vancouver and it was a great day with a diverse crowd and thought-provoking discussions. BookCamp is an unconference where attendees pitch ideas for presentations and discussions. If you’re at a session and decide you’d like to check something else out, you’re encouraged to do so. Or perhaps you have a question/suggestion or something to add, you’re also encouraged to speak up and share your thoughts.

The morning began with just a short address from the BookCamp Vancouver organizers and acknowledgments for the sponsors and supporters. What I like about BookCamp compared to other conferences is that there isn’t a keynote speaker. Sometimes the keynote speaker can be less than expected and/or the acoustics can suck and/or it just doesn’t interest you. At least an unconference it’s not rude to leave a session — which is something I wouldn’t do to a keynote speaker.

Anyway, on to the sessions! Grab a cuppa something good and settle in for a loooong post.

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A few weekends ago I attended the first ever FreelanceCamp Vancouver at The Network Hub downtown.

This was very well-spent $10 admission, but with an unconference style only some of the talks appealed to me.

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All this talk at Northern Voice and during the “Writing and Editing for the Web” course I just finished has me itching to work on the backend of the blog. I’m trying out some new things and updating some things that I’ve been neglecting. I also have some questions that perhaps other bloggers can help answer.

Uploaded Images and Photos on Flickr

I have gone back in all my uploaded photos (here on the blog) till October of last year and altered the titles and alt text. I’ve been naughty and haven’t been keeping that up to date. But as suggested by Alexandre in the SEO session at Northern Voice: start using good practices immediately and they will start to come naturally.

I’ve been adding photos to my Flickr and have removed almost all photos from my Facebook. I bought Flickr Pro in February and I am loving it. I’ll still be posting photos on the blog but now, I’ll try to link to the appropriate Flickr album for more photos when it isn’t necessary in a blog post.

Speaking of Facebook, I also deleted all my videos and will make sure to keep my YouTube channel up-to-date. However, most of the videos I upload to YouTube get embedded here. Which leads us to our next topic…. plugins.

WordPress Plugins

I am using Viper’s Video Quicktags plugin right now, but I just downloaded the Apture plugin to make these cute little icons in front of my links. But Apture also has an embed function, so do I need to keep Viper? Also, if I uninstall Viper, will it break my current embeds (mostly YouTube).

I already love how AddThis Social Bookmarking plugin works. I also recently activated the All in One SEO plugin and I’m exploring that more too. I’ve also been making sure to add tags to all my posts. This how-to video from WordPressTV that was suggested by kmore on Twitter has been a big help for doing all this tag updating.

Do you have any plugin suggestions that are vital to your blog well-being?

Improving my Workflow

I am interested in exploring Evernote to keep track of things. I already really like my “To Do” list on my iTouch and I use my iCal religiously. I’m interested in how Evernote can be integrated into my workflow. (And maybe it will make me less dorky at conferences when I whip out my pad of paper and favourite pen).