I’m sitting back at home after a long day at “Moosecamp,” day one of a two-day blogging conference here in Vancouver called Northern Voice.

Those of you who subscribe to my feed will already have seen a few of my pics trickling in throughout the day. Expect more of the same tomorrow, but I thought it would only be fair to share my observations after this first day of action.

I attended sessions all day, ranging from “Mash-ups for Non-developers” to “Photocamp.” Oh, and I got my purple t-shirt with “Bloggable” across the front. Damn, that’s clever!

(purple t-shirt photo by Kris Krug)

The first thing that always strikes me about conferences of this kind, is how I “fit in.” See, in most of the crowds I find myself in, I am a different breed; an uber-user web kid, who everyone turns to for all matters related to the in-ter-nets, and computers in general for that matter.

In a crowd like the one at Northern Voice though, I’m just a wide-eyed “noob,” all slack-jawed because I’ve just seen a live demo of feed mash-ups that never knew were possible, or because someone confirmed that it really is Robert Scoble sitting over there in the corner.

If you’re not a habitual, obsessed blogger-type like me, and you’re reading this wondering what the hell I’m talking about, then don’t give up on me just yet. My point is simply that in the world of the web, I am but a fledgling student when compared to the kind of power-users, developers, and…let’s just say it - downright A-list bloggers that tend to show up at the kinds of conferences with “camp” as a suffix.

(me scratching, as seen by Cyprien, whose NV shots are many)

The second thing that strikes me is how many familiar faces I recognize. Thanks to the presence of little 60×60 pixel avatars on many of my online haunts, I can put the face to the name for a lot of personalities in the room, even when we’ve never met. I feel like I know them, such is my familiarity with the frequency of their blog posts, or their photo feeds, or even the sound of their voice on their podcast, if that is the case. That, I don’t mind telling you, is ultra cool IMO.

Since attending Barcamp way back in August, I’ve gotten to know a few of “the people behind the blogs,” through emails, coffee meetings, lunches and various other meet-ups. In fact, Jeremy and I carpooled to UBC together, and our firms collaborate on projects as well.

I guess what I’m doing a long-winded job of saying is that the web has connected all of us in a way that was never logistically possible before, and conferences like Northern Voice were created to celebrate that fact; to organize the collective to spawn new ideas, share them, and for at least one weekend, to press actual flesh and meet the real people behind the web presence.

For this reason, I try to make a point of introducing myself to all of those people that I feel I already know. Sure, I might come off as a bit “fan boyish,” but that’s what it’s all about for me.

Strangely, I’m coming to this realization only after returning home at the end of the day (I opted not to give myself the burden of attempting a live blog this time). Thing is though, I’m back there tomorrow. So if you’re reading this and you’re attending Northern Voice this weekend, stop and say hello!

I’ll be the guy with the goofy grin and the outstretched hand, waiting to shake yours.

——–

I will add to this all weekend, but if you want to see a slideshow of my shots thus far, it’s here. Also, if you’re curious about all-things-Northern-Voice, the agreed upon tags are northernvoice for posts, and both northernvoice and nv07 for Flickr photos.

Blog on, Vancouver.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 24th, 2007 at 12:34 am and is filed under web 2.0, the blogosphere, new media, Vancouver, nv07, northernvoice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.