A View from the Isle

Believe it our not, Victoria’s number one industry is tech. Yes, tech…

In the week after Labor Day I chatted with a couple visiting from Baltimore. They were in Victoria for just one night, having planned their trip according to the boilerplate stuff peddled by our tourism industry (that Victoria is a “quaint” and “British” town). Now that they had arrived, however, they realized there was a lot more to see (but their vacation plans were already set: Whistler next, and then a wedding in Vancouver, with no way to book additional time in Victoria). I asked them what they thought the city’s number one industry was. “Fishing?” the man volunteered. Inwardly I wanted to scream, “Are you nuts?,” but I just said, “Nope, try again.” “Tourism?” she ventured. Wrong again. High tech, I said. That kind of staggered them (fortunately they were sitting down). But it’s true — tourism was eclipsed by high tech in 2006/07 (tourism revenue: $1.2b; high tech $1.8b).

link: » Will Victoria grow its start-up muscle? Yule Heibel’s Post Studio © 2003-2008

But if that’s true, then why is it so hard to have a start up there? Why is it so hard to get tech events together there?

Having lived there for a year and been in the neighborhood since 2000 I have two possible answers: scale and Vancouver.

Let’s look at scale first because it’s the most obvious. The tech community in Victoria is pretty small (compared to Vancouver that is) and given that for any social group a percentage of people never come to events and few can make it to all events, the potential pool of people to come to events is just smaller.

This doesn’t mean that DemoCampVictoria hasn’t been a success, it has, it’s just harder to get and maintain that critical mass to keep going.

Again scale can relate to funding, fewer people to tap into, even though UVic is right there with tons of young minds eager to be tapped into.

Together both of these lead and relate directory to the second, and more compelling reason, Vancouver.

Vancouver’s tech scene is huge, well-established, and tremendously social. The core groups (pods?) work together, relax together, and have fun together. I think I’d be hard pressed to not have at least one tech event that I could attend every week.

Vancouver gets the attention, it has the money, it has the draw. Victoria? It’s on a freaking island. Boulder might be a small city surrounded by reality, but Victoria is small city surrounded by ocean. To get to Victoria you can’t just hop in your car and drive over, as you can with Denver and Boulder, you have to take a float plane or ferry. Which ever choice you make, it’s time consuming and expensive.

It becomes tough, not to mention expensive to get to Victoria on a whim. I would have loved to be at the last DemoCampVictoria, but going would have meant about $100 in ferry fares plus finding a place to stay.

Couple this with the fact that a lot of Victoria companies don’t toot their own horn enough you have the “perfect storm” of reasons why Victoria isn’t getting the due it deserves.

Solutions? Well building a bridge has been talked about for years, but that’s about as popular as allowing smoking in hospital maternity wards. I think the only thing that can be done if for the Victoria tech community to really start making noise about itself and not mention Vancouver in the discussion.

Van who? Where is that? We live in Victoria…

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Tonight in Vancouver we had our monthly Third Tuesday Meetup with tonight’s speaker none other than Rebecca “Miss604″ Bollwitt.

Rebecca, for those who don’t know her, is not only a brilliant and savvy tech-social media mavens, but one of Vancouver’s most recognized and well-known bloggers.

The question then is how did she do it? It was a combination of hard work and talent, of course. I live-blogged the session with CoverItLive and you can watch the replay below or the scrollable version farther down the page.

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Rebecca has the links to the sites she mentioned in her talk (that I couldn’t type-hear-grok fast enough):

Links to some items I quoted: # State of the Blogosphere - 2008 # Personal Brand - Micah Baldwin # How to Blog - Tony Pierce

link: My Third Tuesday Talk Recap » Vancouver Blog Miss 604 by Rebecca Bollwitt

Raul took some awesome notes and has those in his post:Rebecca Bollwitt (Miss604) on branding: Third Tuesday recap « Random Thoughts of a Student of the Environment

Tanya said that the next Third Tuesday (since it will be in late Dec) will be more informal and more networking, having fun.

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Fresh on the heels of what could be argued as the first President that social media elected came a social media gaff in Vancouver’s mayoral race.

The story broke in the Vancouver Sun and was tweeted and blogged by many local digerati including Colleen of BuzzNetworker:

The lessons to take out of this? Register your name and your company name in all of the social marketing sites right away. Not owning your own name could come with serious consequences. And, if you’re trying to get people to choose you over another option, don’t try to win that vote by point out what the other guy is doing wrong.  In this age of transparency and honesty, you just look petty and childish. Source: Local Politics use Twitter Poorly

And Michael Tippett of NowPublic who also commented on the fact that while we were arguing over a social media gaff, the current city council put us all on the hook for $100 million to guarantee that the Olympic Village will be finished on time (no mention of whether the social housing will actually make it).

Now you want the truly ironic part? The last mayoral debate before the election on this Wednesday which is hosted by the CBC will take questions from Twitter and be live-tweeting the event!

I’ve had a long while to think about this whole Twitter-jacking business. In the great scheme of things, it was a pretty stupid thing to actually use the Twitter account. Yes, “fakePeterLadner” would have been much better from the get go. I think the Vision Vancouver team has taken some well-deserved lumps from the social media community on this issue. There are any number of us who are Vision supporters, including myself, who they could have bounced the idea off of and all of us (I hope) would have told them not to do it, just sit on the name.

The greater point is that, like we heard at the Vancouver Board of Trade panel recently, you can’t just sit back and ignore social media. Fine, don’t participate, but at least stake your claim. Buy domains, reserve names on Twitter, etc. if nothing else so they can’t be used against you.

Remember when the web was young and the idea of a candidate or party website was alien to most politicians? Remember how many got burned when domains were bought out from under them?

Social media is just the same, so get with the program people. Good grief the Ladner and NPA campaign could have used “Twittergate” to distract us from the greater issue of the $100 million dollars voted on in secret and seal as in camera. Alas they didn’t.

I guess the only thing left to do is to listen to the debate on Wednesday and vote two days later.

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I had a great time today at Media Democracy Day. I didn’t get there until after lunch time, but I managed to catch a couple panels and live tweeted them.

First was:

Journalism in a time of Big Media Domination

In much of the traditional media, newsrooms are being squeezed, local coverage diminished, and serious journalism abandoned. What does this mean for journalists and journalism as a whole? What are the challenges and opportunities? Could this void be filled by independent reporters and innovative journalism projects? In a media system dominated by large corporate conglomerates, independently owned outlets provide important alternatives but rarely reach significant audiences. What have been independent media’s successes and challenges?  How do independent outlets and journalists spread critical perspectives that the mainstream ignores? Panelists will discuss these issues and describe what they see as the possibilities of using new media and new models to do in-depth investigative projects, find untold stories, and engage new audiences. Whether relying on contributions from readers, new tools and technologies, or old-fashioned, shoe-leather reporting, could these projects counteract big media, and redefine journalism?

Panel Chair: Charlie Smith - Editor of the Georgia Straight

Panelists:

- David Beers – Editor of The Tyee, lecturer at the UBC School of Journalism

- Linda Solomon – Writer and editor-in-chief of The Vancouver Observer

- Deborah Campbell– Award winning Independent Journalist

- Sylvia Richardson - Host of Latin Waves, Airing 8pm Saturdays on CJSF 90.1 FM

Since I was just live Tweeting this the “old fashioned way” the tweets are in reverse order, but well here it is regardless (with some pics I took thrown in for fun):

Good question-why isn’t the left-wing more critical of itself? Why not challenge the NPD or others? Too many sacred cows? Lefty than thou? about 7 hours ago from web

It seems to me from several comments from the panel that the MSM has put a chill on criticism through law suits. about 7 hours ago from web

W00t! @LiveTwitting is following me just in time for @scales and @mtippet’s panel! about 7 hours ago from web

Comment that the CBC is undergoing a serious shift to the right. Campbell suggests that it is a fear of funding cuts. #mdd

Wait a moment here…flash of insight and opportunity. @bmann I’ll ping you. about 7 hours ago from web

Would it help to centralize independent media into something like an advertising consortium? #mdd about 7 hours ago from web

Independent media are little launching pads. The 100 mile diet came from the #thetyee first then spread. about 7 hours ago from web

Good feedback for Pete on the article. #thevancouverobserver and #thegeorgiastraight interested in info. about 7 hours ago from web

Pete’s question is how to get a particular niche/health issue in the news? Charlie Smith: Find the people who have a connection-niche. #mdd about 7 hours ago from web

Pete Quily at the mic. Pointing out that CanWest is SEO clueless. Hmm. #mdd about 7 hours ago from web

Richardson: Does Canada really have free speech? #mdd about 7 hours ago from web

Constructive criticism is to make sure there a hook. Something new to write about. Not that the MSM isn’t blocking them, but needs new #mdd about 7 hours ago from web 

Why hasn’t the suit against a parody of the Vancouver Sun been covered by the MSM? #mdd about 7 hours ago from web

There are no exceptions in Canadian copyright laws for parody and satire? WTF! #mdd about 7 hours ago from web

Now I think the questions will begin. Any questions for the fighting the media behemoth? #mdd about 7 hours ago from web

Solomon: Be the media, be that change #mdd about 7 hours ago from web

And @mtippet is in the house with video! #mdd about 7 hours ago from web

@RobCottingham oh yes, that too… about 7 hours ago from web in reply to RobCottingham

Solomon: What happens when you bring Canadians together. When our values come together. What happens? #mdd about 7 hours ago from web

Linda Richardson: empowering yourself to tell your story #mdd. about 8 hours ago from web

Hmm #TheVancouverObserver tech section is rather empty http://www.thevancouverobse… Hmm. #mdd about 8 hours ago from web

@RobCottingham maybe so, but are embedded journos giving the whole story? about 8 hours ago from web in reply to RobCottingham

Solomon: when challenging the Sun about a suspicious editorial-very similar to hers-threatened with lawsuit. Plus never write for CanWest about 8 hours ago from web

Really odd to hear a Southern accent in Vancouver. Just sayin’. #mdd about 8 hours ago from web

Linda Solomon "Want to tell you up front, I’m American". Canadian in training, must apologize on behalf of all Americans. [me too] #mdd about 8 hours ago from web

Campbell: Support the Independent media to broaden perspective. #mdd about 8 hours ago from web

Campbell Cultivate an area of expertise, be flexible, be able to write about varied topics Writing human story to circumvent censorship #mdd about 8 hours ago from web

Campbell: Journalism students you have to take risks, don’t expect a lot of money-rates haven’t changed much since 70s. #mdd about 8 hours ago from web

@scales has arrived! about 8 hours ago from web in reply to scales

Campbell: Shrinking budgets are reducing the investigative journalism. No money for travel and time spent. about 8 hours ago from web

Campbell: Ask yourself when you watch the news. Was this story brought to you by PR companies? Press releases, press conferences. #mdd about 8 hours ago from web

Questions for this media domination panel at #mdd will come later. Questions for the panel? @ or DM me. about 8 hours ago from web

Deborah Campbell’s focus is Iraq and how the media is controlled - manipulated. about 8 hours ago from web

Really, really wish I could use @livetwittering for this. Would give a one page synopsis. Sigh. about 8 hours ago from web

David Beers pushed the use of Web 2.0 news to make Google see them as important sources. about 8 hours ago from web

Deborah Campbell is up now. about 8 hours ago from web

Beers: The demise of CanWest is troubling. What would fill the void? #mdd about 8 hours ago from web

Van indie news heavy weights all here #thetyee #georgiastraight #thevancouverobserver Deborah Campbell & Sylvia Richardson. about 8 hours ago from web

David Beers on Net Neutrality: a tiered non-neutral net could mean #thetyee & #georgiastraight needing to pay more to match #canwest about 8 hours ago from web

@pmharper thought arts funding would be a wedge issue. Policy=fail. about 8 hours ago from web in reply to pmharper

David Beers of #thetyee is speaking atm. canwest global as analogue of econ collapse. Not sustainable biz model about 8 hours ago from web 

Whew remembered my VPL PIN! Let the live tweeting of #mdd begin! about 8 hours ago from web

Next up was another great panel but this time I was able to use LiveTwitting to cover it which means that now the tweets are in the order you’d expect, start at the top, finish at the bottom.

The panel was a nice compliment to the one preceding…

The Battle for New Media and Open Communication

We stand at a crossroads in the history of communications technology, a moment when traditional media are in disarray, and a new form of communications and organizing — more grassroots and decentralized — is on the rise. The Internet is upsetting conventional wisdom about "mass media" and changing media power in ways never before imagined. But change also raises new threats. Will an open Internet succumb to the same companies that control traditional media? The new challenge for us is to organize around and develop new sets of policies, projects, and tools that will finally give us an advantage in the decades-long struggle against the gatekeepers.

Panelists will discuss the fight for an open Internet, prospects for online/social media, and future challenges.

Panel Chair: Kate Milberry - Media and Technology Commentator

Panelists:

-Leslie Regan Shade – Associate Professor Concordia University, editor of "For Sale to the Highest Bidder: Telecom Policy in Canada."

-Jeff Davis - Vancouver Open Network Initiative Cooperative (VONIC)

-Mike Tippet – Co-founder of NowPublic

-Robert Scales – CEO of Raincity Studios

@mtippet is at the mic. Free market research-asking who’s heard of @nowpublic. edit • delete
Technological, cultural, and economic forces aligned help. CanWest has lost $3.5 billion in market cap this year. #mdd edit • delete
MSM doesn’t have the money they used to. Not selling, craigslist, development ads … all tanking. edit • delete
CanWest might be the largest media presence in Canada, but puny online. edit • delete
The news media was in trouble a month ago, right now they are in REAL trouble. Ad revenue has dropped off the table edit • delete
"You won’t recognize the media landscape in three years" Michael Tippet edit • delete
Scales still "super editor" and "unofficial" China desk editor on NowPublic edit • delete
Streets of Torino, they couldn’t talk about the Olympics, IOC shut them down. Hmm. Guess you have to pay to cover, eh? Became cultural show edit • delete
@greggscott do you think the contributors need more oversight? edit • delete
I’ve heard that CreativeCommons protection isn’t worth a hill of beans. True? My pics are essentially non-comm, share and share alike. edit • delete
Leslie Ragan Shade on telecom policy. Maybe touch on net neutrality? edit • delete
Telecom policy is driven by markets and econ. But there should be more independent forces to help. Proceed to allow hands-off policy. edit • delete
Describing Net neutrality in s few words that is a challenge for any speaker! Prof. Shade did a good job. Fast lane and slow lane on the Net edit • delete
Canada lacks any policy on national broadband strategy. Ouch! edit • delete
Jeff Davis talking about Community Wireless. I have one of them and need to hook it up here in Van. edit • delete
@greggscott I think there are certainly plans in the works to do that. But how would an editor balance the ethos that exists now w/in NP? edit • delete
FreeTheNet.ca is the local Vancouver group doing this. I can see how the current providers would have a HUGE prob. with it. edit • delete
Municipal wireless is still a dream in Vancouver. FreeTheNet is now Vancouver Open Network Initiative Cooperative (VONIC). edit • delete
Although I can share my net access for free, the infrastructure is still owned for profit. Another key part of net neutrality. edit • delete
Is there a way for communities to own their access to the Net instead of the telcos? That would be something I’d invest in. edit • delete
Okay question time here…Questions? Love to be able to say "A question from the Twitterverse.." edit • delete
QA: Question & Answer edit
First question speaks to @greggscott’s point about how does/can NowPublic moderate? Ans: There is some, but it is a huge volume. edit • delete
Is self regulation enough on NowPublic? Is the user level system working? Self correcting news. Faster than the MSM? edit • delete
Q: Why aren’t there web conferencing tool? Scales: The client tools are the issue. The questioner also slammed #drupal Web conferencing=hard edit • delete
Man this questioner is really going on a rant. Step away from the mic. edit • delete
Comment-question from public health nurse to reach out to marginalized groups. So how to reach VONIC? Could be a great public health resourc edit • delete
The revolution starts a home. Is enlightened self-interest enough to help? edit • delete
Q: does citizen journalism devalue journalism as a career? A: Michael hates term "citizen journalism" like ‘citizen dentist’ edit • delete
A truly free market is important. Telcos are monopolies regulating themselves. Net neutrality again is so important to us. #mdd edit • delete
Explaining the freethenet.ca wireless mesh. Oy, need a whiteboard here #mdd edit • delete
Q: Open source software…really catching on? A: Open source is still a wee geeky for most. #RCS uses OS because it is flexible #mdd edit • delete
Open source is gaining strength, but not there yet. #mdd edit • delete
Kate Milberry makes the key point is that this is all about sharing. Your net connection or news or software. #mdd edit • delete
non net neutrality analogy: If Ford owned the highways and limited how was a Chrysler could drive on it. #mdd edit • delete
That’s a wrap folks. edit • delete

Very thought provoking stuff. I couldn’t stay for the ending keynote on net neutrality, which was a pity, so I hope someone else covered it.

As for the rest of the pics, here is the Flickr slideshow:

The pictures were taken with a Nikon D300 using an 85mm f/1.8 at ISO 320 –1/3 EV and 70-200mm f/2.8 ISO 500 –1/3 EV.

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Before I wander to the VPL for Media Democracy Day, I’ve swung over to the Vancouver Health & Wellness show, courtesy of Dave Olson. Why pray tell? Well the scads of folks offering massages might be enough or the samples of healthy stuff—lord knows I need healthy stuff in my life—but really I’m here to give HappyFrog.ca some love.

HappyFrog is a Vancouver-based social network for Green living and promoting Green companies—it’s not easy bein’ Green ya know—the idea being that we the consumer should play an active role in not only finding Green companies, but reviewing them as well.

When I got here to the show they were fighting with getting the Telus wi-fi to work so, I let them be to deal with that.

I’ll have more interesting things to say later I’m sure, but I’ll just wrap up by saying…

Did I mention they are giving away prizes?

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Those who know me know that I’m a bit of a political wonk. Not obsessive or a junkie, but I certainly like to discuss the issues and consider new opinions. You couple that with an upcoming mayoral election in my new home city of Vancouver, well you know that my ears have been tuned into a bit.

Okay the first thing I had to figure out was the whole NPA, COPE, and Vision deal as far as political spectrum goes. That out of the way, well I’ve started to ponder this election a bit (one of the 4 I’ll have voted in this election season).

I had a chance to both listen to and speak with Vision candidate (centre-left) Gregor Robertson at Launch Party V last month and was impressed with his ideas. Peter Ladner I didn’t know too much about, but as the NPA candidate (right), I could guess his stance on a lot of issues.

Last night I was told by the Vision Team that there was going to be a debate that night on affordable housing, homelessness, and mental health issues just around the corner from me. I couldn’t very well pass that up, now could I?

Housing and homelessness have been on my mind a lot recently. I look at the people on the street in the Downtown Eastside and wonder what will becoming of them come the 2010 Olympics. I look at the cost of places to live close to the core of where the Vancouver tech community has set most of their roots (Gastown and Yaletown). I see buildings in decay and wonder why they couldn’t be renovated into housing.

Funny enough, those same questions are on the minds of a lot of people in this city because every one of them was touched on last night.

In the midst on trying to capture pictures I wasn’t always able to focus on the discussion, but the tenor I caught. The mannerisms I caught. Peter Ladner was not a dynamic figure. I took hundreds of pictures of him last night and he has one expression, something I’d call a detached dour. Gregor Robertson I found to be a far more dynamic figure in his passion and discussion of the issues. Are this just surficial judgments that have no bearing on a campaign? Maybe, but a charismatic leader can inspire and lead people. He can challenge people.

For the meat of the discussion, frankly there are no easy answers to any of these questions. Both men agreed that money would be needed to work on the problems. Mr. Robertson pledged to end street homelessness by 2015. Mr. Ladner continued on NPA pledges to build more affordable housing, but he seemed to waver on exactly where that housing might be.

The Olympic Village’s transformation into housing for the rest of us, well it sounds like not as much of it is going to be something that either the poor or middle class will be able to afford.

Contrary to what the Globe and Mail says, this I feel is the core issue that separates the candidates. I see Gregor Robertson having a vision of Vancouver that will allow more people to be able to afford to live closer to Downtown if not in Downtown. I see Gregor Robertson being a man who has the passion and ability to connect with people, the people who are working and building a newer, better Vancouver.

I look at the tech community here, we’re young, damn-freakin’-scary smart, and passionate about what we do. We’re putting Vancouver on the map. I don’t see Peter Ladner paying much attention to us.

Peter Ladner certainly is carrying the baggage of the NPA’s past. He isn’t backing down on that, I didn’t hear him back peddle too much. Seems like a lot of more let the market figure it all out policy.

Yeah, that’s turned out to be a real winner of a strategy for the global economy hasn’t it?

Both parties/candidate put up rather sparse (okay not very good) blog posts: Vision – Peter Ladner, but I’d like to continue the lively discussion we had on Twitter about this.

Please step up to the microphone placed in the centre aisle…

While you’re thinking, here is a slide show of some of the pictures I took from last night:

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One of my favourite things about the Vancouver tech community is, well, the community. One of the main reasons I decided to throw caution, and a job, to the wind and stay in B.C. instead of moving to Toronto was the community and circle of friends I have here.

So true to Vancouver form, after chatting with Raul this morning (and confusing him with a bad pun), he let me know about tonight’s Ideas On Tap event tonight in Yaletown (W00t! Walking distance!).

The event is free, and open to all techies around, but you do have to register (for headcounts and a name tag thingy).

Although I’ve been a part of the tech scene in Vancouver for a long while, I wasn’t during the Dot Com boom and bust so I didn’t know the context and history of the event. That gap was filled by Rebecca’s post from earlier this month announcing the re-launch of Ideas On Tap. Being the tech maven she is, Rebecca will also be participating in Ideas on Tap (live blogging I’m guessing).

Me, I’ll stick to live tweeting and taking pictures. I’m guessing that this will be a venue for the flash, but I doubt I’ll pull out The Lens for this one.

See you tonight.

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Fitting that after last night’s Net Tuesday on social media for change, that today is blog action day and that the topic is poverty.

I had already decided to do my post as a photo essay. This is my first photo essay, and I’m mostly happy with it.

Anyway, what I was thinking is that we often only think of poverty as being something in “some sections” of town, but really it’s everywhere. Since I moved to Vancouver in late July I’ve been more keenly aware of poverty. Not just in the Downtown Eastside, but in the “nice” neighborhoods, the malls, places where it seemed incongruous to me.

Having been personally touched by poverty, I wanted to try to express that not only is poverty everywhere, but that we have grown so accepting and accustomed to it that we ignore it.

For the action part of this exercise I would encourage you to donate to the organizations that are doing work on the ground helping people. I’m going to be donating to the Union Gospel Mission.

As it would happen, as I was coming towards the end of my walk I ran into a couple guys selling calendars with pictures from the Downtown Eastside.  The Hope In Shadows project looks amazing and the 2009 calendar inspired to my pics in black and white as well.

The rest of my Flickr set from my walk is in this slideshow:

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Today we had the October edition photowalk around Vancouver with the VanDigiCam group. We started around Terminal and Main and then meandered around until we found ourselves at the Cambie St. Bridge.

What a fantastic night for a photowalk. The light was just amazing and the air crisp and cool.

Right now I’m still exhausted from the walk to really get into all the stuff I learned, but I did decide to play around with Lightroom to get some HDR (high dynamic range) effects and other colour effects.

I wasn’t going for reality as much as, wow, that shows something different.  Here’s the slideshow from my Flickr set:

Now I need to pick some favs to send to the VanDigiCam group…

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Last night Susan Mernit ventured North to talk to a group of interested folks about the Knight News Challenge 2008 and how we could apply to get a grant to do cool things for the world.

Kris Krug had graciously offered the Raincity Studios space for the (rainy) evening event and a good nearly two-dozen folks turned out to learn about the Knight News Challenge, what it was about, how to apply, and get tips on potential projects.

What is this all about? Essentially the Knight Foundation (who funds folks like NPR, etc) has a mission over the next few years to give $5 million in grants to people who want to do cool, new, and innovative things surrounding news, information, and discussion.

To apply for the first round you only need to write up a 300 word blurb about your project, but there is a catch, you have to meet these criteria:

• Be really innovative. The ediger and “out there” the better
• The product is must be released as open source when complete
• Serve the public interest/great good
• Be based in a real, physical location to start out (no Second Life doesn’t count)

Sounds simple, right? Yeah it’s the simple ones that always get you. Taking a look at past Knight News Challenge winners is a great source of inspiration-not to mention not repeating a past project-and there is a “Garage” to help mentor applicants in their proposals, at least for the first cut.

As you would expect, the Vancouver folks had some really cool ideas. Raul had a great idea about putting pollution info online. There was something about ad hoc GSM networks and fearlesscity.ca has some cool plans for the Downtown East Side.

The deadline for submissions is Nov 1 and Boris and Richard have a little space on Barcamp.org for Vancouver brainstorming submissions.

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Michael Tippett and NowPublic published the fourth in their series of “MostPublic” lists today, and, umm, wow, I’m #12:

Vancouver, BC – September 26, 2008—NowPublic in partnership with the Vancouver Sun, today announced its fourth MostPublic Index, identifying the Web’s 20 most visible individuals in Vancouver.  The MostPublic Index is a detailed barometer of whose voices are most heard in the digital landscape as new channels—Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and the like—transform how media is created and spread.  Previously, NowPublic identified and announced the MostPublic influencers in New York, Silicon Valley and Los Angeles. Source: MostPublic Index: Vancouver

Several things hit me about this list. First, that I know and have met in real life almost all the people on this list. Next that I also know that the majority of the list has been at this game for at least 3-4 years. That’s longevity baby.

Finally I realized that there is a damn good chance that most of the people on the list will be at BarCamp2008 and we can get a group picture of all of us.

Congrats to everyone on the list. Now let’s rock it.

Quick update: Here is the Vancouver Sun article and Rebecca’s post (I really liked Rebecca’s post).

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I hung out with Jordan and the Launch Party gang last night to check out some of Vancouver’s newest and most promising startups. Tagga was there, I hope they weren’t up too late since they are flying to Vegas today, and since I already think they are pretty cool, I can gloss cover them.

One startup that caught my eye was ClarityAccounting, basic web-based accounting for small businesses. Okay, maybe not so basic. Sheila got the full pitch, I was taking pics as usual, but she was really impressed. For $10/month she can manage her side work, teaching, jewelry sales, and other gigs all together. PDF invoices, receipts, access for your accountant. It’s all there. Simply, easily. Sure I’ve tried to use QuickBooks, but wow, it is a royal pain. Not even considering the cost there are the updates (not free btw) and just using it.

And so, I think ClarityAccounting is going to have some legs.

There are two ways to succeed in Web 2.0, etc one is to come up with something brand new and amazing the other is to just make something we need better. Coming up with something mind-blowing amazing, and new, is a rare thing. Doesn’t happen often. The “something better” happens more often, isn’t as sexy, but I think something that can succeed.

The problem with the “something better” is that if your competition is so entrenched (say eBay) that a competitor has to overcome a huge amount of user inertia to get people to switch. Like for me and photos. On Flickr I have over 11,000 pics and I’m not an edge case either. Can you imagine me moving everything to a new service? Yeah no. You’d have to have a way to use the Flickr API to move not only the pictures, but the sets, collections, and tags. Oh and tell folks that I’ve moved my pic. Oh, yeah all the posts where I’ve embedded an image from there …. yeah those would break huh?

See? Huge amount of inertia. I am thinking of doing more with SmugMug for my professional portfolio, but make it my primary photo location? Yeah not likely.

ClarityAccounting, if it has a nice QuickBooks import function, can make it painless. Amount of inertia? Low. If your account weeps tears of joy at what it does, even better. For a new user, they can be sending out an invoice in a few minutes and Sheila said it would take a day or two for her to bring it all up to date. Granted she might not have a lot to enter, that’s still pretty good.

Learning curve? Looked like less than nil.

Don’t reinvent the wheel. Make a better wheel. Not in a rainbow of new colours, but something new, smoother, easier, faster, better.

Innovation can be as simple as just being better.

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Like many of my bloggy friends here in Vancouver, I attended Molson’s Brew 2.0 event at the Molson brewery on Burrard Street. Of course lots of us, okay most of us, were coming there (initially at least) to drink beer, eat good food, and hang out with friends. I left there however with a new appreciation of how Molson does business and how it brews its beer.

It’s no secret I’m a beer fan. Have been for a long time. So getting the chance to go to a brewery and drink their products pretty much as fresh as I could ever get it, yeah I’m so there.

Here’s the thing though, I left realizing that Molson Canadian isn’t a bad beer at all. I even had Geoff Molson pour a beer for me. Not often you get that chance in your life time. Not only that Gord Rickard (of Rickard’s Red fame—another of my fav beers) poured me one of his brews as well.

So beyond the yummy appetizers—Rebecca has the menu in her post: Brew 2.0, Molson’s Special Night for Bloggers—we got a tour of the brewery. Did you know that the brewery is celebrating its 50th anniversary? Yeah, no kidding, pretty cool. Did you know that Molson is serious about conservation? Yeah, there are posters everywhere talking about saving electricity and water. I even saw a chart/poster tracking how employees are doing.

I’ve been to smaller breweries and have brewed my own beer before, so I knew about the basic process behind it all, but wow seeing cans of beer literally fly by being filled with beer and sealed is pretty amazing.

Tasting a beer straight off the line then getting to have the special Rickard’s Gold beer that celebrates the 50th anniversary of this brewery, very cool.

So we got free beer, we got great food, a tour, and a little gift as we left (glass and flash drive with logos, etc), but that isn’t what has made me look at Molson in a better light. It was the people. Yeah, our tour guide was a brewmaster himself. He knew his stuff and was proud of it. Geoff Molson, very nice guy. Easy to talk to, yes a guy you’d like to have a beer with.

The folks at Hill & Knowlton did a great job organizing the event, however I think their job was made so much easier because of the culture and people of Molson.

The lesson here is, companies, take a risk. Bring bloggers and social media people in, show us why you’re proud of what you do. Give us the inside scoop (did you know beer tasters taste out of smoked glasses so they can’t tell what they are drinking?). Geek out on your products. We’ll dig it. We’ll appreciate the inside story. Yeah, of course free stuff is great, but learning about a company from the inside, that’s bloggable.

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I can’t believe that I’ve been living here in Vancouver for about a week now. Amazing. Since this is not only the first time I’ve really lived in a large city (I lived in North York for a bit, but that wasn’t really “city” to me) but also living in the downtown core of a city, there is a lot of new stuff that I’ve been experiencing.

Here is a list of a few of the things I’ve learned:

• Walking around isn’t bad at all, in fact I rather enjoy it.
• I can walk farther and faster than I imagined
• Wow people stay up late
• I can get coffee and/or food pretty much anytime I wish
• Driving in the city isn’t too bad, it’s parking that sucks
• There are some really interesting characters around here
• I really love living here so far, and I think it’s only going to get better.

I want to thank everyone for making me feel so welcome in my new home, and for not telling me “I told you so” too often that I should have moved here sooner.

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Many of you probably either saw this coming or are pretty relieved or both. The consensus was (and is) that I would be pretty miserable in Toronto. They are right, I would be.

In fact, for the last two months I’ve really been off my game and it is directly related to me moving to Toronto.  I was dreading the move.  The winters, the hot summers, being away from the ocean and my BC friends, none of these things were great things in my book.

So last Friday-Saturday I decided I needed to call it all off and make a change for myself that would make me happy.

I did decide to move very quickly.  I also think my gut reaction for why to move (to be closer to kids) was good. I just didn’t give myself time to really think about it.  I decided the course and went off like a shot (yeah no, I never do that, uh huh).

I am very excited about moving to Vancouver.  Very excited.  Even with the now added stress of finding a place to live and coordinating a move around my vacation (no freakin’ way I’m skipping that), I’m pretty calm.

For the obvious questions:

• Yes I’m still with b5.  That isn’t changing.
• Yes, I’ll miss my kids, but I’ll fly to see them and do Skype video

I’m actively looking for a nice 1 br place in the West End or West Van. I now have a loverly set of bunk beds (with a twin and double mattress) available and probably at least one small dress.

My kids’ clothes, for the most part, will get donated because they will have grown out of them by the time they visit me.

That about does it.

Questions from the floor?

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