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

After a quick break, I attended Twitter in the News with Erin Loxam from News1130, Theresa LaLonde from the CBC, Andrea Woo from The Vancouver Sun and prominent freelancer Bob Mackin. The panel focused on the effect that social media—particularly Twitter—has on traditional news media.

Because tweets are often assumed to be true (isn’t everything you read on the internet true?) that journalists need to fact check more than ever. If you’re live-tweeting a story as it’s breaking, many journalists and news sources will note that information is “unverified”. They also discussed the difficulty to engage on Twitter as a neutral news source since the forum so personality-based.

The next panel I attended was Social Media & Online Defamation with Gillian Shaw, Marko Vesely, and Patricia Graham. From an online reviewer standpoint, I found this talk particularly interesting. Many laws that apply in traditional print media do apply online—people just assume that there is an anonymity on the web and their actions don’t have consequences. The tips that the panelists had for us included: err on the side of caution; make sure statements are based on fact; and if someone commits libel against you, respond quickly.

Northern Voice 2011: Social Media & Online Defamation Panel

An interesting distinction is, that if someone accuses you of committing libel, the onus is on you to prove that it isn’t, not on them to prove that it is. Did you know that you can be sued for republishing a libelous statement? To avoid committing libel, keep your intent clear and your attitude accurate because if the other party can prove you’re “out to get them” they can win on malice of intent.

I attended Mike Vardy‘s talk on Blogging Funny. He had some good tips about how to inject humour into your blog by identifying the type of humorous voice you wanted to use and finding your niché. Do you want to write parody, satire, crass, poetic, subtle or blue humour? Are you going to use graphics, word choice, dialogue, attitude, or a different style? A lot of his tips and recommendations were applicable to blogging in general, so it felt succinct and well-rounded; I enjoyed the talk and laughed quite a bit.

I then sat in on Theresa Lalonde’s talk for How to be an Empath: Social Media Training, but I felt that it was a lot of “here’s what we did on this campaign” and showed us examples and case studies. I would have preferred more concrete discussion of the “how”. Because I was experiencing connectivity issues on my iTouch, I excused myself from the session early.

I attended Raul Pacheco and Arieanna Schweber‘s presentation titled Communities that Rock. The talk was amusing and engaging and I want to check out their ebook. The panel (and conference) assumes you already have some experience blogging, so it isn’t too basic. From the sounds of Raul and Arieanna’s ebook, that too will be the case.

Full house for "Communities That Rock" talk at NV11

A lot of what they discussed was about blogging and engaging your audience through storytelling. So many of the tips were very practical, such as: identify your community and what you offer them; ask a question at the end of a post to invite comments; use your blog as your hub; don’t let social media distract you, use it as a tool.

Raul and Arieanna also talked about a lot of general tips such as SEO, how to keep people on your site after they’ve read one post, keeping your content engaging, visuals such as images, breaking paragraphs up and summarizing audio/video.

Today, Day Two, began with a very interesting keynote from Chris Wilson titled From Dial-up Modems to Post-”Social Media”: A Journey. I felt waaay young when he was talking about the first incarnations of the World Wide Web, but it was really neat to hear firsthand about his experiences. Chris was a fantastic, engaging storyteller.

I first attended the panel on Grassroots Campaigns for Change. It was interesting to listen to three individuals behind LeadNow.ca, OpenMedia.ca (Stop the Meter), and Canadians for Obama / Shit Harper Did. I was more interested in their motivations behind these campaigns than their actual “how to” because so much of it is luck. One really important takeaway was that social media should be used for organizing, then things should be taken offline to get traditional media attention. It reminded me of SlutWalk.

After lunch I sat in on Sex, Lies and Wikipedia. Tim Bray was funny and a good storyteller, but a couple times I was wondering “what’s the point in this story?” He did end up coming full circle, and I enjoyed the Wikipedia stats and some funny links. Tim closed his talk by announcing that everyone is an expert in something, and we should all go become wiki editors, especially females.

Then, I was MIA for over an hour. I had approached the WordPress Happiness Bar on Friday to help solve a problem I was having. Stephane Daury of Automattic was so patient, helpful and brilliant. He fixed the import problem I was experiencing with the BBAW posts coming from EE. Ignore me if that’s jibberish, but just know that I wanted to jump up and down, squeal, and vomit from relief all at the same time.

My new favourite person: Stephane the WordPress genius!

By the time I got back into the swing of things, it was time for us to prepare for our panel titled, Altruism vs. Narcissism: What’s in it for the Online Reviewer?.

Online reviewers chatting pre-panel

I was moderating and sortakinda the book bloggers, Kyrsten Jensen was representing the Yelp reviewers, Marina Antunes eats-sleeps-breathes movies and Nicole Christen—who I was introduced to through Northern Voice—was representing up the parent bloggers.

Overall, our panel went well. The room had more than 20 people, so that made me happy. I was a little nervous and found it difficult to segue the topics seamlessly. I think the only downside was that we were very succinct and sped through our material too quickly. I had only prepared 2 questions in the event of extra time and those got merged into another answer/discussion. Thankfully Lauren Wood—who is on the NV organzing committee—had joined our Skype planning session last month, so she chimed in with a few questions to prompt discussion.

In the future I think I would be happier sitting on a panel than moderating. It’s not as easy as it looks and I think I overestimated my eloquence. I need to use full sentences instead of just key words—fortunately my panelists knew what I was getting at most of the time.

All in all, a great conference that I was honoured to be a part of. Can’t wait for next year and I hope to be able to help more on the organizing end (as a website lacky).

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!

Altruism vs Narcisscism: what’s in it for the online reviewer?

Bloggers are gaining more authority when it comes to products and entertainment, but there are challenges we face as “non-traditional” media.

This panel—featuring a parent blogger, book blogger, movie reviewer and an Elite Yelp-er—will discuss the ins-and-outs of review blogging, beginning with how to get started and addressing a number of topics such as including/omitting spoilers, making your blog stand out, handling a negative review, working with companies, and more.

PANELISTS: Parent blogger, Nicole Christen; Book Blogger, myself; Movie Reviewer, Marina Antues; Elite Yelper, Krysten Jensen. Session takes place on Saturday during Northern Voice 2011.

Technically I am moderating the panel, but my book blogging background is what led me to be interested in online reviews. I’m excited and nervous at the same time. Our session is the last slot of the day on Saturday. The whole panel had a gathering on Skype already to discuss the session and I feel like we have a really good energy.

I’m looking forward to the entire Northern Voice conference (all day Friday and Saturday) but especially looking forward to our panel!

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.

——–

The first session I attended was Feeding the Social Beast Without Getting Bitten. It wasn’t what I expected, but it was still a good session. It was moderated by Sean Cranbury and we skyped in Kimberly Walsh and Hannah Classen, both of CBC Books. The conversation tended towards encouraging online communities — hints, tips, and what’s important. Kimberly and Hannah spoke from their experiences with the CBC Books website, Facebook, twitter and blog. They said the number one way to get people involved was to offer contests and it was crucial to have a conversation not just broadcast your messages.

Preaching to the choir, they told us that social media isn’t instant, that it takes time and you need to invest enough and eventually the users get involved that it grows and manages itself more easily. They had suggestions for theme discussions, genre suggestions, as well as book picks. They would get to know users and let users get to know the people behind CBC Books. One of the ways they did that was to sign off their tweets with their initials, and get to know followers’ interests.

We finally got onto the conversation I was expecting: how to balance personal and work within social media. Speaking solely from experience, Kim and Hannah recommended time management and finding useful tools. They suggested to practice multi-tasking, getting used to technology, and separating personal and professional accounts.

Someone asked the question: what works and what doesn’t? Again, speaking from experience (which I think was valuable), Kim and Hannah said that they’d tried different forms of an online book club and found that encouraging discussion worked better than pure broadcasting. They recommended hosting your events and activities on your own website (as opposed to Facebook, etc.) because then you’d have full control of it. They said that they mainly use social media to spread the message and as an additional way to interact with users. They offer exclusive content to different subscribers — Facebook fans, Twitter followers and for live discussions they suggested an app called Cover It Live.

——–

After the break, I decided to attend Monique Trottier’s session titled Tools, Tips and Technology for Content Creation and Curation. I was divided between this session and one abut growing online book communities, but after the community discussion in the first session, I am glad I went to Monique’s session. Lots and lots of applications, websites, and tools were suggested for a variety of uses.

TEXT — creation and management

• writeboards (within Basecamp) for collaboration
• GoogleDocs—includes calendars, appls, etc.
• pbwiki
• WordPress
• Evernote—cross-platform, stores info via online, can export
• mindmap & jumpchart — thought organization

AUDIO / VIDEO — creating and editing

• iPhone — can record audio
• Skype — can record calls
• Pamela, vodPod — add-on software for Skype to record video
• audacity — opensource, free audio editor
• protools — high quality audio editing
• iMovie and GarageBand — automatically installed on Mac
• audioBoo
• animoto — royalty-free clips
• iPhoto — can turn still photos into a video

PHOTOS — organizing and sharing

• flipbook — create photo albums
• slideshare — upload powerpoint, videos, slideshows, etc.
• Flickr
• Picnic
• Lulu — $, print a text and photo book
• Blurb — $, import images from Flickr and add captions
• Applebook — $, print via iPhoto
• iUniverse — reviews are mediocre
• issuu.com — upload and convert to flash slideshow

PRINT BOOKS ON DEMAND

• Lightning Source
• Book Expresso — machine at Oscar’s Art Books
• Smashwords
• Leanpub — need single file
• BookRiff — pull a bunch of sources into one book

DESIGN (we didn’t spend much time on this)

• Adobe Creative Suite — $, Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, etc.
• More Adobe — InCopy (offline InDesign), Cool Edit Pro, Soundbooth
• ConceptShare

WEBSITE ADD-ONS (we didn’t spend much time on this)

• GoogleDocs can export forms
• wufoo — good for contest forms
• unbounce — landing page

CONTENT SHARING

• addictomatic — aggregates content
• delicious — share bookmarks
• tags — tag everything so there is good metadata so that others can find it
• Yahoo! Pipes — aggregates content
• Google Reader — fave, star, “post to reader”
• Feedly — makes feeds into magazine format
• StumbleUpon — the new way to ‘browse’ the internet

MANAGING / MONITORING

• Social Mention — finds any keywords
• trackur — $, save searches, automatically searches for you to monitor trends
• Social Oomph (formerly TweetLater) — keyword email digest
• GoogleAlerts — can set up keywords and strings of words
• Radian6 — $, all in social media monitoring
• Tweetdeck
• Seesmic
• HootSuite
• Alterian — $

Woah. That’s a lot of tools! I don’t have the time to link them all, but hopefully you can just Google them. Next session: Lunch! I got to catch up with Kim Werker and saw a few familiar faces before hitting the next session. Oh! And thanks to BookNet for sponsoring lunch, provided by Out To Lunch Catering.

——–

After lunch, I went to The State of the Electronic Book with Brendan J. Wilson. Brendan presented an extremely popular session last year about the business of ebooks and where the industry was at. This was sort of a follow-up session to the session last year. I didn’t attend the session last year so I was interested to attend the session on ebooks.

Brendon started by chatting about the features and developments of the different devices. It is now standard to have multi-use devices, not just a dedicated reader. The topics of tethering, syncing, and sharing ebooks are all up in the air. Sony eReader does have a “lending” feature but it is (ridiculously) time sensitive and aparently screwed up.

According to Brendon, last year’s developments were all about different sizes, backlit vs. eink, touchscreens, colours, external storage, apps, WiFi vs. 3G, battery life, social features, and single vs. multi-purpose devices. But of course it is all very subjective to what kind of user/reader you are. Are you a tech geek? You’ll want more features. Are you a beach/vacation reader? You’ll want a long battery life. Are you unsure or want something inexpensive? Maybe you’ll just be using the eReader apps for your current device. In fact, Blackberry PlayBook and the new Samsung Galaxy both come pre-loaded with Kobo. Kindle becoming a multi-use device and they’re looking into gaming support.

We then discussed the purpose/use of stores. Someone remarked that people used the store just to browse and then bought the book on their eReader. In the USA, Barnes & Noble (creators of the Nook) have Nook displays in store and you can get special features if you’re in-store with your Nook and “check in”. Amazon has now started to do in-store displays with partners such as Staples, Best Buy, and Target (USA). Unfortunately for Chapters/Indigo, the in-store displays for the Kobo all have an error with the display device.

Brendon then brought up the battle for talent as well as end users. Some authors are signing exclusive deals with one device while other authors are being screwed by publishers over e-rights battles for backlist titles. Then the publisher also has to produce for a variety of formats and the buyer can’t even move their files between devices.

We also examined the price race — the cost of an eReader is dropping dramatically. $259 for the small Kindle was the beginning, now $189 for Sony eReader, recently Kobo dropped their price to $139, and there are rumours that the Nook will be at $99 before the holiday season. Most people ask, “Am I going to use it enough to make value of the cost of the device?” Well, as Brendon pointed out, a $99 Nook is about the price of three hardcover books.

Brendon also presented some information about market shares in North America and the number of devices shipped. He also presented information about the sales of electronic books in the past year — it has more than quadrupled. However, this could be larger considering it doesn’t look at libraries, independent PDF sales, free ebooks. But, to put it in perspective, for 2010 ebook sales only make up about 5% of total book sales (compared to 1% in 2009).

Once we got on the techy sales track, Brendon presented some more figures. I really appreciated this summary of information put into perspective because it just feels like the digital world is out of control at the moment. Brendon showed us some graphs on sales trends. The top 10 titles make up 18% of the revenue for books, and the top 20% of titles make up 70% of the revenue. There is a whole lost market of the rest of the 80% of books that have additional potential for ebooks. The top time for buying seems to be Tuesdays and weekends, while the worst day is Thursday.

Then Brendon took some Q&A — images supported by ebooks? Probably not any time soon, unless iPad/tablet. ISBNs for ebooks? Good idea, not required, free from the Canadian National Library. I didn’t make any other notes from the Q&A but I really liked Brendon’s presentation, he was funny and engaging and informative.

——–

The final scheduled session (before the unconference BaseCamp part) that I attended was Everything You Ever Wanted To Know … About Working In Publishing. The session was presented by Kevin Williams of Talonbooks. Kevin was certainly animated and has had a long career of experience to draw from. I enjoyed the session but would have preferred more of a panel and Q&A session and/or Kevin to introduce himself and give a bit of his background/history.

Kevin first addressed that your personality and talents will affect how you do — whether you are an introvert or an extrovert, you should find a position that suits you. He then went on more of a tangent about publishing in general, as opposed to working in publishing. Although it was informative. He went over the traditional process and then talked about how it has changed over the years (lots is now outsourced).

Kevin did talk about the different positions and made some interesting comments on the type of people that thrive in those positions. Publishers are the mediator between the author and the reader and need charisma. They need to be able to sell the book and get people excited about the titles. He also talked about working (in a more general sense). He said the three steps of a career are Master, Innovate, and Improve (move forward / more responsibility). He stressed that if you’re always giving 110%, your employer will value you.

Kevin got very animated when he hit on a subject he was passionate about. He stressed that publishing was a value-added process and each book should be treated as a single business unit (SBU). At the end of the session, he made some predictions on how he thought the publishing process was going to go with ebooks but he stressed that he didn’t think there was a replacement for text, writing, or ideas. He stressed that we’re still unsure of how ebooks are going to change/affect print books.

——–

After the final coffee break, we all gathered in the auditorium to pitch ideas for the final session. I ended up choosing to attend The Future of the Physical Book (not the ‘fate’, as Abby kept saying). The session was mainly a discussion about where print books were headed and how their value was changing. We also talked about the downsides of ebooks and what the internet couldn’t provide. We all agreed that we didn’t want the book to go the way of the music industry when mp3s took off: ignore, fight against, then sue the fans.

It was a fantastic and informative day. Well-organized and well-attended, BookCamp Vancouver 2010 was quite the success! Thank you to all the organizers and volunteers who helped create and run BookCamp. I truly enjoyed myself and strongly value the ideas shared and information I learned during the day.

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

The first talk I attended was The Importance of Proper Branding for Small Businesses by Kevin Simcock from 1000Watts. This really hit home with me as it seems every freelance client I design logos or business cards for needs to be taught about proper business branding. Kevin reminded us that every interaction speaks about your brand. With all of your products (logo, business card, website) you need to convey the same brand positioning statement.

Kevin posed some questions to ask ourselves about our branding: what is your key business statement? what does your logo say/reflect? does your company name reflect what you do? does your website go well with your logo/colours/etc.? does any social media add to your message, not detract? One really important message Kevin said was that people buy outcomes, not a brand/person/product.

The next session I attended was Business Card Science with Sam Zipursky from Advice Tap. This was a little more like business card etiquette and things to do and not to do with your physical business card. He had some good points about business meetings and when/how to hand out your business card, such as waiting until the end of a conversation.

I decided to excuse myself and go check out Email Marketing with Corwin Hiebert of Red Wagon Management which was running at the same time. I almost wish I’d been in this session the whole time! The whiteboard was covered in points and columns of “Hate”, “Love”, “Best Practice”, and “Tools”.

Users hate too many emails, when they are generic or impersonal, with they are too sales/pitchy, and when they are irrelevant. Do not send an email blast just for the sake of sending an email blast. Make sure you have a message. Also, make sure your subject line is not to sales/pitchy.

People Love when they are targeted, less disruptive, selective, and media rich. Best practices for sending email blasts are Tuesday at 9:30am, sending content rich messages. Corwin said that reviewing your open rate and click rate is important. He said if there is less than 50% open rate and 15% click rate, he would review the marketing strategy because something isn’t working.

I stuck around in that room to listen to the next session, Networking & CoWorking with Raul Pacheco-Vega (aka Hummingbird604) and Jay Catalan of The Network Hub. Unfortunately it felt a little pitchy about The Network Hub and (I hate to say) but it didn’t grab my attention. I wandered out to check out some other sessions (three session run simultaneously during each block).

I ended up at How to Manage a Creative Project with Corwin Hiebert again. This was extremely relevant to the work I do at my regular job. Corwin talked about giving the team updates, having a meeting agenda, not just having notes in email and more. He mentioned that it is important to make sure the scope of work is clearly outlined, that there is one point person, and you reassess often. Some tools mentioned for group management were SmartSheet, ActionMethod, Basecamp, and a book called Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky.

Then we had a lunch break and there were some featured speakers and sponsored lunch. I decided to pop down to Waves Coffee shop and grab an panini instead.

Next, I attended Pricing For Freelance Services with Tom Varjan from Dynamic Innovation Squad. This was more of a Q&A session which seemed to work well. The one take-away point is that fixed rates generate 87% more income than hourly rates and clients prefer to know up-front what they’ll pay.

The next session I attended was Promote Yourself Using Free Tools with Bonnie Sainsbury from Duet Media. After the first couple points about making sure you’re visible online, it turned into more of “Twitter 101″. I decided to pop upstairs and check out another session.

At the Freelance Is Not Free session by Raul Pacheco-Vegas, he spoke from personal experience of working for free or for pay. He said he has stopped working for free for things that doesn’t have value. If it is a project that he believes in or finds value in, he’ll help out for free.

The second-to-last session I attended was Apps & Gadgets for Freelancers with Shan Shan Fu. This was a really neat session to sit in on. While it wasn’t exactly apps specifically for freelancers, they were all apps for productivity. In a room of 20 people, there were 8 iPhones, 3 Android phones, 3 Blackberries, 2 Palms and 1 windows mobile phone. The apps suggested for all these different devices also had Apple dominating the market. But something that Shan Shan noted was that while Apple may have 100,000 apps and Android only 10,000, there are probably 100 farting apps on Apple and maybe 10 farting apps for Android.

We talked about cloud techonology, Evernote, DropBox, HoursTracker, Tripcase, Jotnote, wifi apps, and more. Shan Shan also showed us slidetype which is called “Swype” by Verizon and “SlideIT” in Canada. It’s going to replace touch-typing for phones and is currently available on just a handful of phones. Watch this YouTube video demoing slide-typing to see the difference. Shan Shan also told us about all the new features coming in Windows Office 2010 (she works for Windows but wasn’t representing them at the conference, just spreading news about new features she thought were cool).

The final talk I attended was about Intellectual Property with Kemp Edmonds. He had battled with his intellectual property (read: something he’d written/created) stolen and re-purposed by another company. First of all, he told us his tale. Then, he suggested a bunch of tools and a bunch of possible forms of action when dealing with intellectual property infringement. One suggestion was setting up GoogleAlerts with “AND” and “OR” statements to find where your name is mentioned. Some other suggestions included: setting up Creative Commons, CopyScape to track your stuff on the ‘net, TinEye for reverse image searches. There were a number of other methods mentioned and it was reiterated to just make sure you are protecting your work and make others aware that you are the owner.

Overall it was a very informative day and I hope that there are more 604 FreelanceCamps in the future. Thanks to all the organizers, sponsors, volunteers and attendees for making this unconference a great day.

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).

My friend Marina found me and we chatted about the sessions we wanted to check out. We both wanted to see a lot of the same sessions, so we headed off to “Blogs Are Dead / Not Dead Yet” with Alan Levine, Chris Lott and Brian Lamb. It was a collaboration, a discussion, and venting about some of the major frustrations over blogging and social media. Nothing was ‘decided’ per-say but one of the best analogies was a Bilbo Baggins quote and how he feels like butter spread over too much bread. There is a poll up: Are Blogs Dead? I have a lot to say on this topic so I’ll save it for another day.

Probably my top (work related) session was next: Coping with Social Media. I found that Alexandra Samuel had some great points about organizing yourself and how to manage social media. But I would have called it “Managing Social Media” because it was mostly organizational tips for using all these devices. However, Alexandra did have some good advice on saying no and being able to say “Sorry, I didn’t have a chance to read your blog post” and never assuming that anyone ever sees your tweets.

The next panel was Fibre Arts Online with crochet author Kim Werker, Felicia of Sweet Georgia Yarns, and writer/author Mandy Moore. I was there as a fan of Fibre Arts and didn’t ‘learn’ much but it was great to hear the fibre arts world discussed and hear some questions from non-crafters. One of the funniest questions was (for Mandy regarding yarnbombing): “So are you like an arsonist, where you stand back and watch how people interact with your stuff?”

Straight into the next session was for Art and Social Media — a great panel including Rebecca Coleman, Rachel Chatoor, Sara Genn, and Deb Pickman moderated by Darren Barefoot. They talked about using social media to promote art in its traditional forms. One of the major discussions was about documenting/sharing/blogging the creative process or the pre-process. With plays and movies a number of suggestions included interviews, set tours, and sharing such things that traditional media used to hold monopoly over airing. One of the closing statements was: “Facebook, Twitter, RSS feeds, newsletters… wherever your audience is, go to them”.

By the end of the day, I decided to just enjoy the coffee break, check out the Non-Profit Expo in the atrium (which was okay but not particularly stimulating) and then call it a weekend. I think I’ll watch the videolog of a couple sessions I didn’t see, but all-in-all I’m pretty satisfied with my session choices. I can’t wait to see how the conference changes and adapts for next year.

Northern Voice

I arrived at UBC Life Sciences Centre at 8:45 am and proceeded to registration. I got a nifty name badge which had my blog URL and Twitter username. Then I sat down as the atrium filled up and they set up for the Keynote address. Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen came over to say hello — we had met recently when she was the guest speaker for an SFU class I took. Then Lisa Manfield, the teacher of said class (Writing and Editing for the Web) came over to say hello too. And suddenly Sean Cranbury stopped by to say hello to Lisa and I introduced myself. Sean and I had recently emailed about Books on the Radio, so it was great to say hello in person.

That first 10 minutes right there really demonstrates the strength and worth of conferences like this. Not only are they a great place to put a face to the name, but to make new aquaintances and network. Then we all settled in for the keynote speech by Bryan Alexander. He spoke of mystery and the unknown. It was a very interesting, reflective, and thought-invoking speech and so different from Keynotes that I’m familiar with.

Afterward, the first set of sessions didn’t really entice me, so I started wandering around the Life Sciences building. I ended up seeing Kim Werker and Kimli Welsh chatting and went up to say hello. I met Kim several weeks ago at the Forensic Workshops at the Vancouver Police Museum and I know of Kimli from craft shows (she is behind the hilariously brilliant NSFW Smuttons).

I hung out with Kim and Kimli while they tagged Mighty Ugly creations for swag bags. These little critters were created ugly on purpose which is the whole point of Mighty Ugly. Kimli was giving a talk later called “Overcoming Social Anxiety, or How to Win Friends and Influence People (in 140 characters or less)” and was giving away swag bags. The Mighty Ugly dolls were going into the swag bags and so they were tagged with a business card in explanation. I snapped a few photos of the process so Kim could post on the Mighty Ugly blog and about these guys going off into the world.

Then, I decided to go to a session called Online Publishing and the Law by Dan Burnett. Dan is a defamation and media lawyer in Canada and gave a very interesting talk. It reinforced some things I already knew about libel and defamation, but was pretty shocking (and frightening) about some of the things you can be sued for. Did you know, that retweeting or reposting a libelous comment means you can be sued for libel even if you weren’t the original offender? Scary stuff.

The lunch break was delicious. It appears to have been provided by UBC AMS Catering but don’t quote me on that one. As a vegetarian, I was very pleased with the spread, and they brought out treats and coffee immediately after. Perfect way to start the afternoon! Over lunch I chatted with my friend Dale, who is one of the video-organizers for Northern Voice, his friend (and author) kc dyer. I also sat near someone who looked very familiar and introduced herself as Carol, later we figured out we knew each other from a Tea Meetup Group. Small world!

After lunch I headed over to one of the smaller classrooms for Copyright and Copywrong: Intro to Creative Commons with Martha Rans and Duncan McHugh. I was a little worried that I was already past the “beginner” level as I’ve already set up Creative Commons (CC) for my writing here and my creative endeavours at Monnibo Designs. However, it was an interesting talk to listen to, and learn more about what “commerical use” constitues. Also, I learned about two new programs: FairShare to track your CC works, and CompFight to search Flickr for CC-licensed photos. The talk ran a bit long as there were a lot of questions at the beginning. Duncan tried to quickly address music, video, and photos as well as writing.

I stayed in the same room for Finding Your Voice with Monica Hamburg and Dave Olsen. I thought Monica Hamburg was fantastic and her talk was extremely engaging, yet stayed on topic. It didn’t stray off into tangents or get distracted by questions that could wait till the end. She talked about setting a focus, how to write well, and what creates a “good voice”. She had lots of ideas and suggestions and really stressed being honest to yourself and being real. Monica Hamburg also included some quotes from bloggers. It was great that she blogged about her talk (in five parts!) pre-conference. Dave Olsen couldn’t make the conference and instead submitted a video. I didn’t find this very engaging, but other people in the room seemed amused. I stayed simply because the next talk I wanted to see was in the same room.

The Nuts and Bolts of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) was presented by Alexandre Brabant. After having a lot of SEO information covered by Lisa Manfield in the recent SFU web writing course I mentioned, it was interesting to attend another talk on the topic. The best piece of advice (besides all the basic SEO information) was to train yourself to use good SEO practices and it will become automatic. Some suggested resources were SEOMoz for detailed SEO information, Google Webmaster Tools, and resources to submit your RSS feed to.

Following the afternoon coffee break, I headed to PhotoCamp for the rest of the afternoon. This was a mini-conference session in itself which covered cameras, time lapse, fashion photography, retouching, and a range of other topics. Moderated by Kris Krüg and including local photog John Biehler, I was really glad I attended this session. It was so inspiring and really informative. It was great that it covered such a wide range of topics.

All in all a very busy but enjoyable day. I am looking forward to tomorrow as there are three sessions I definitely want to attend.

Either way, this weekend is SUPER busy. I have a work event in Victoria (1.5 hr ferry ride away) all day Saturday and then I have to rush back to Vancouver on Sunday to make it to my choir’s Spring Concert!

BookCamp Vancouver was an incredible experience! It took place on Friday October 16, 2009 and there was so much to absorb! I wasn’t able to make it to every event that I wanted to because there were four events going on at a time. The great thing about BookCamp is it was organized as an “unconference”; instead of having a speaker or a lecture, the person was more of a moderator or host.

Grab a cup of something warm and get comfy, this post is a long one!

—————————

After the opening remarks, I went to listen to author Tris Hussey talk about Tech Tools For Editing Workflow. First Tris spoke a little about writer’s workflow and ranted that Microsoft Word was not built for writers. He suggested several applications designed for writers to organize their thoughts: Scrivener or Ulysses for Mac or Page Four or Rough Draft for PC. The best thing about all these programs is you can usually export to Word so you can send to your editor(s).

When you have large files, Tris mentioned using a free service called DropBox to send the files back and forth. It’s better than email, FTP, or YouSendIt because it acts like a shared folder. You can open and edit a file while it’s in the DropBox and it as an “oops” feature if you messed up.

Tris stressed the need for version control — not overwriting old files and keeping track of what you send and receive. I’ve already got this under control when I export PDFs, but I really need to work on this with InDesign documents too. And the other thing that Tris couldn’t stress enough was backing up. He really wanted everyone to set up an automatic backup on their system. Some suggested tools or programs that people had were Time Machine from Apple, CrashPlan for Mac, Carbonite, Mozy, SugarSync, and SuperDuper! (which I use).

Some other community tools that the group discussed included: GoogleDocs, Google Wave, OpenOffice (instead of Microsoft Office), EndNote for bibliographies (costs money), ShortCovers through Indigo, BaseCamp for project collaboration, Writeboards for collaborative writing, and InCopy for CS4. All these programs have their own uses and strengths. I am very jealous I don’t have InCopy on my CS3 because it’s all about collaboration during editing workflow.

—————————

The next session I went to was about Digital Rights Management vs. Free Content moderated by Sean Cranbury from Books on the Radio. Sean started out by defining the terms for everyone (so we were all on the same page): Digital Rights Management (DRM) is any lock on a file that contains creative content which prevents the buyer from modifying it. Lack of DRM results in piracy or file-sharing. “Free” Content is content that you’ve paid for but are free to share.

The main concern and reason for DRM seems to be that the creators think that people are going to pirate and share the file/program/item illegally. We also discussed how a lot of people think that just because something (like a book) is digital, it doesn’t cost as much. But in terms of the prices, 40% of the profits go to the retailer, 30% to the publisher, 20% to the printer, and 10% to the writer. Just because it’s not sent to the printer, doesn’t mean that it didn’t still get edited, designed, written, etc.

Another issue we discussed was licensing issues: users want clearcut info abou what you can do with a digital file you purchase. With books, you buy the object and it’s clear that this object is now yours to do what you want with it. But with digital books, can you use it on multiple devices? How do you lend it to a friend? What if you get a new device? Can you transfer it?

The music industry was used as an example for what could happen in the DRM debate: first they rejected that it had an effect, then they got angry, then they began to sue people. We discussed how the publishing industry can learn from these mistakes, especially with the development of ebooks. We also discussed the recent uproar about George Orwell’s 1984 being yanked from e-readers. People joked that the Book Police aren’t going to come into your home and pull a book off your shelf. We also discussed how the terms “licensing” and “buying” confuse people; you can buy a book, but you only buy a license for an ebook.

Sean mentioned a survey done by O’Reilly Media and RandomHouse USA called “The Impact of P2P and Free Distribution and Book Sales”. This survey measured the impact of file sharing on book sales. Many thought people pirated/torrented immediately, but they found out that it wasn’t really until 5 months later after release that people started trying to download it. The most surprising data is that once something was leaked, the legitimate sales spiked again. Many publishers think that free distribution negatively affects book sales.

Then we had a break for lunch, sponsored by BookNet Canada and provided by Out To Lunch Catering. It was very good! Everyone milled about and chatted with each other.

—————————

After lunch I went to listen to Brendon Wilson moderate a session on The State of the Electronic Book. I already knew a lot about the technology and products available, but they had some e-readers to pass around the room which was great. There were also some statistics and views I hadn’t even considered regarding e-readers. The ebook revolution was even likened to Gutenberg and his printing press: he destroyed the role of the scribe but progressed us further than ever imagined.

Brendon gave a bit of background about e-readers: in 2007 e-ink and e-paper got cheaper and that’s when the Amazon Kindle really took off. The main difference between e-readers and laptops is that e-readers use reflective light and laptops are backlit. Even though Sony came out with the first e-reader, Amazon now controls 60% of the market. One surprising stat is that 21% of e-reader purchasers are aged 50-59. We discussed that this could be the cost of yet another device: the Sony Pocket Reader averages $200.

We then got onto the question: In a world of ebooks, are publisher still relevant?”to which there were many answers. The thought was mainly YES, but that the role and purpose of a publisher in a traditional sense was changing. We still need editors, designers, and distribution (all roles of the traditional publisher) but the “gatekeeper” role is dead. Going through a publisher is no longer the only way to get your work out there. We discussed that the role of the publisher will probably develop into more of a facilitator or curator for the written word.

How do ebooks affect the publishers? Some of the challenges discussed included piracy, broader competition, multiple devices, but the opportunities include access to out-of-print titles, new revenue models, and new avenues of exploration.

How do ebooks affect the authors? The author can now sell books through Amazon, the booksellers are becoming publishers, you have self-published authors too. Some of the challenges are lack of support (via a publisher) and more competition in a world where anyone else could do the same things. However, there are greater opportunities to access the audience, get more than just 10% of the proceeds, and explore new formats and revenue models.

How do ebooks affect the readers? Challenges are mainly the expense: not only are you paying for a $200+ device, but then you’re paying at least $10 per book. Ebooks are also difficult to share (DRM licensing debate), and the product can be yanked away (see above Orwell discussion). But the opportunities to access new materials are nearly unlimited.

—————————

After another quick break, I went to listen to Morgan Cowie of BookNet Canada talk about New Business Models in Publishing and Bookselling. While this wasn’t my favourite session, I still learned a lot about an area of publishing which I’m unfamiliar with. Morgan discussed that the new business models are based around what your purpose is.

If your purpose is faster delivery, Morgan mentioned that the current time frame for producing a book is a year to year and a half (after the manuscript has been written). Now there are other options including print on demand, which opens new doors for backlist revitalization and out-of-print titles.

There are opportunities for convergence — one type of genre all together from different publishers (vertical) or all titles from one publisher (horizontal). Convergence with movies, video games, and other leisure activities was also mentioned.

There was also talk about Revenue: HarperStudio now has a 50/50 split between publisher and author, but there are no returns. During the revenue discussion, the price of electronic items was debated; it’s hard to price these items because we don’t know what they will garner. We also discussed monetizing through textbook rentals, Bookriff (trade titles), Syntext (fragments) and OpenRoad (backlist).

If your purpose is collaboration, there are many different ways to have content collaboration before printing. But some of the current models out there include BookOven, Whole Art Books, and Bookriff.

If you want to mix your mediums, there are digital books, webisodes for books, vooks (book movie), online interviews, book trailers. One of the main problems people had with medium aggregation was when does a book stop being a book?

If your purpose is for a pre-release or a production cycle, you can allow people to buy the manuscript and comment and help form the book. This was the part that I had the most trouble with. Sure, you may get experts having some input, but what about something creative where a group of individuals just don’t care for the ending? Sometimes these commentators can get a credit in the book too.

—————————

During our final break, everyone gathered in the auditorium to determine the final sessions. These were left open so that any unanswered questions could be addressed in another 45 minute session. I chose to attend What the FAQ? with Monique Trottier from Boxcar Marketing, Darren Barefoot, and Deanna McFadden from HarperCollins Canada. This was by far my favourite session. Not only did I learn things that are valuable in a professional setting for me, but also in a personal setting (on this blog and my other domains).

Basically Monique, Darren, and Deanna fielded questions from the audience. We started on the topic of keywords and positioning yourself (or your product) in the marketplace. GoogleKeywords was suggested to generate synonyms — if someone doesn’t know the title or author, what terms would they use to try and find it? Then you can use GoogleTrends to measure the success of specific keywords.

Someone then asked about author publicity. In terms of twitter and blogging, it was important to keep everything in the author’s authentic voice. You can also encourage the author to explore these things: You can lead a person to Twitter, but oyu can’t make them tweet. Also in terms of Twitter, pure publicity language (ie: Buy my book now!) does not work well. You need something personal behind it.

Then the purpose of websites was discussed and the need to easy navigation. The purpose for your website should drive your online marketing, for example, Firefox wants you to download their browser, so there is a Big Ass Button on the homepage. “Everyone needs a Big Ass Button” said Deanna. You need structure: a specific strategy of what you want your web marketing to do. One useful tool was P.O.S.T. — People, Objective Strategy, Tool.

We then spoke about the budgets for social media campaign, which our moderators felt you could spend as much or as little as you could afford. They suggested we try different free tools and it really depends on what you want to get out of it. If you can drum up enough publicity simply through your free online activities, maybe you don’t need print advertising or traditional marketing models.

I then asked about social media sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and other lesser-known ones. Monique basically explained that individuals submit links and other people vote on the links. They described any traffic you get from these links to be a ‘low quality’ traffic — they click just that one link and leave the site quickly. You want a higher quality of a visitor who will stick around and click other things.

This led to a discussion of Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, Delicious, and Twitter. Flickr is good for sharing slideshows and ‘back stage pass’ photos. YouTube is great to host the content for you to embed. Delicious is a higher quality link-sharing tool. Facebook and Twitter are used more as talking avenues and promote a high quality of association.

The final question was about blogger outreach — how to reach your bloggers (from a publisher’s standpoint). They really stressed for less marketing and more publicity, not sending unsolicted books, not blasting out press releases, and not to mass mail your contacts. Deanna fielded this question and mentioned that she often finds a blog, reads their posts, and sends a personal note. She stressed that a pitch should be personal and have a link to the title. All these little things will demonstrate that the publisher values the relationship with the blogger.

—————————

WOW! That’s all folks! It took me forever to finish this blog post, and I am so glad I took tons of notes during BookCamp. I am so excited to participate in another unconference and hope that BookCamp Vancouver happens again next year! Now to go add this blog post to the Unconference Wiki (where the schedule and news was posted).

But over the weekend I forgot my laptop and left it at home not plugged in. It obviously had trouble keeping the harddrive alive because booting up yesterday I kept getting a “kernal panic” message which basically says you need to reboot for whatever reason. Booting up just now took about 20 minutes and I had to keep turning it off and on, off and on, until it booted up. Sometimes it would just sit there making the boot up noise a bunch of times, doing nothing.

So I’m looking at a 13-inch MacBook Pro with 4GB of RAM (which I was considering updating on this computer anyway). It’s $1,749.00, with free shipping… but we also now have an Apple Store here in Vancouver, so I might go down and play with some of the new computers. Is 3 years too short of a lifespan for a laptop that I use every day, sometimes non-stop for several hours at a time? Have I got my money’s worth when I spent $1,600 on this machine?