If you have a tech event that you would like listed, please feel free to submit it to the Techvibes event directory. Here's what we have going on around Vancouver this week:
Techvibes is pleased to be a Media Sponsor of the following events:
Internet Marketing Conference (IMC)
With the long weekend behind us, the kids back in school and a busy month ahead, here are some of the events around Vancouver (and why not, Victoria too) at the top of September.
"MobileCamp will follow a BarCamp style, and take place Saturday, September 6th at WorkSpace. Discussion will span multiple platforms: iPhone, Blackberry, and Symbian, plus the others that are still catching up. If you think you have a topic to contribute, it looks like there's still room for presentations or demos" - [Techvibes]
If you have an upcoming tech event, please feel free to add it to the Techvibes Event listings.
So far Vancouver has hosted two of its own WordCamps to discusss, share, educate and collaborate using WordPress and we've even seen this event reach out into the Fraser Valley. This fall, as a part of BarCamp, WordCamp will be taking up a hefty morning slot for all of those who need their fix.
Duane Storey (of Brave New Code) and I (of sixty4media) will be spearheading WordCamp and Duane's already got the call out on his blog this morning:
If you have a topic you’re potentially interested in presenting, or have something you’d like to have talked about, please leave a note in the appropriate section on the Wiki Page (the password is c4mp). The actual people who end up presenting will be decided the morning of the event, but we’re just interested in what people would like to hear. [DuaneStorey]
We're looking forward to another successful BarCamp and hope that WordCamp will be a nice complement in this environment of learning, participation, and sharing.
Almost on a weekly basis someone asks me what's up with all the "camps" us social media people have all the time. I mean, there aren't any tents involved (except at things like DrunkCamp or CampCamp) so what's the deal with the naming of these get-togethers?
Here's a quick glossary of terms as BarCamp, BarCampBankBC, PodCamp (Montreal), and MobileCamp are all coming up next month.
- "Camp": Suggest an unconference style of meetup - full day or otherwise. The camping portion of BarCamp is to emulate FooCamp, "the annual invitation only, no-structure, no plan, tent on the lawns, hacker event hosted by publisher Tim O'Reilly." Yes, sometimes tents can actually be involved... as well as spirited beverages... that isn't the focus of BarCamp - at least not on Saturday.
- "Unconference": "A facilitated, face-to-face, and participant-driven conference centered around a theme or purpose. The term "unconference" has been applied, or self-applied, to a wide range of gatherings that try to avoid one or more aspects of a conventional conference, such as high fees and sponsored presentations." [wiki]
Whether you're thinking of planning an unconference or camp from Demo to Vino, the underlying theme is to be social. Everyone has the chance to participate by way of offering up topics, being a speaker, volunteering or live blogging / podcasting / video streaming the day's events.
Photo Credit: John Bollwitt
With the Vancouver representatives back from Gnomedex this week we only have one event listed so far:
How Drupal Can Save the World
If you have an tech-related event, please feel free to add it to the Techvibes Event Listing. If you're in Calgary, Edmonton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Montreal, Ottawa, Portland, Seattle, Toronto and Victoria - your events are very much welcome on the Techvibes directory as well.
For years the local tech, blog and podcasting scene has migrated south to Seattle (previously Iowa) for Gnomedex. This morning the conference opened up with a welcome from founder Chris Pirillo and was followed by a presentation from Vancouver's own Kris Krug.
You can read a recap of Krug's session on Raincity's blog as Dave Olson keeps us all up to speed. You can also find information, recaps and comments in the following places:
The local video studio that has brought us gems like How to Shower Like a Man or Woman, Ultimate Fighting: Home Edition, and those saucy and very friendly chocolates will soon be taking their feature-making efforts across the globe.
Giant Ant Media will be heading to Tanzania this fall as a part of Urban Project:
Bongo is a 12-part web series that follows 3 Canadian filmmakers as they facilitate the creation of an album with a group of young street-based artists who aspire to make it big in the East African hip-hop scene, and are trying to create a better future for themselves.
In order to raise funds for the production, Giant Ant held a fundraiser and will host another benefit at the Anza Club on September 10th featuring the band Headwater. They are also giving all those interested the chance to "Be a Producer" by donating to their production budget.
Ants can carry ten times their weight. They work in teams to make great things happen. We believe that big things come in small packages. [more]
Raj Taneja of Urban Mixer worked his way up from being "that computer guy" in the office to running his own company across the globe in cities like Kiev and Bogota, to Hong Kong and Tokyo. After career moves and changes brought him back to Vancouver and from 2001 onward made all the right moves to acquire a unique party company. Think of "a house party with house party rules... only in a new restaurant. Invite people you would only trust coming to your home," said Raj about the exclusive nature of his first local venture to be involved with called Social Empire.
Photo credit: Urban Mixer on Flickr © Urban Mixer
After building up an empire of his own, Raj now operates Urban Mixer, "a social events aggregator in Vancouver, Calgary and Seattle."
Urban Mixer is a social organization. Its mission is threefold: 1) Plan engaging, interactive events that people enjoy. 2) Provide a fun, friendly environment for young urban professionals to meet. 3) Disseminate information about events occurring in the city. [Urban Mixer - FAQ]
It was originally formed in 2003 and since then Raj has been able to change things up and drive enormous amounts of traffic to his site. "UM is open for anyone wanting to be social in the city. It’s roots are in being a singles club but that changed in 2006," Raj noted. "Now the membership is ‘Social Singles’ and ‘Dynamic Duos’."
Photo credit: Urban Mixer on Flickr © Urban Mixer
He was able to take the exclusivity of the Social Empire and transform UM into a user-friendly website and a powerful resource for those wanting to get out and be social throughout the Pacific Northwest. "The main idea is to meet fun people and make new friends. If you're bright, interesting, friendly and like to have fun, you'll fit right in!" [Urban Mixer]. You can browse all upcoming events in the Urban Mixer Newsletter, or click here for the week of August 18th.
(This article is also available on Miss604.com)
Just last spring BuddyPress became a part of Automattic thus partnering with the creators world's number one blogging platform. [Techvibes]
Last weekend San Francisco hosted another successful WordCamp which saw BuddyPress creator Andy Peatling of Vancouver present the social netoworking site to this large group of WordPress enthusiasts. I had the chance to touch base with Andy, who is currently still down in California, in order to learn more about BuddyPress:
What is your involvement with BuddyPress? I'm a lead developer on the project, but BuddyPress is open source, so anyone is more than welcome to help out. We've had a lot of people help with testing, code donations and bug fixes so far.
I was fortunate enough to be supported by Automattic back in March, so I'm able to work on BuddyPress 100% of the time.
What is BuddyPress? BuddyPress is a set of WordPress MU specific plugins, each plugin adding a distinct new social networking feature. Think of BuddyPress as a "social network in a box", where users can set up and create their own internal or niche social network based on WordPress.
BuddyPress components can all be installed together, or you can install only the components you want. That essentially means you can add social features to a blogging network without turning it into a fully featured social network.
What was Automattic's motivation for starting this project? I started the project on the side when I was working as a freelancer. The guys at Automattic love to see cool new things done with WordPress, so they were just happy to support the project and to see where it might lead.
What are some of its unique features? It's a social platform built on WordPress, I think that is a great feature. It's built on something familiar to a lot of people, so hopefully people will feel at home using it.
The ability to add and remove components as you see fit I think is fairly unique. If you didn't want private messaging for example, you could just remove it without any trouble. None of the components will rely on one another, however some components enhance the functionality of others.
What do you hope BuddyPress will be able to achieve? Who knows? We just need to concentrate on getting the project to version 1.0 and see what the community comes up with. That's the great thing about the WordPress community, there are so many talented people out there who can do amazing things. Hopefully BuddyPress will give them further opportunity to apply those talents.
Who can join BuddyPress? BuddyPress isn't a single social network, so it's not as case of who can join. It's a platform, so it's more a case of who can use it. Of course anyone can and will be able to download it. Right now you can get hold of pre-release copies of some of the plugins at: http://trac.buddypress.org/wiki/installing-buddypress or you can test-drive it without installing at: http://testdrivewpmu.com
The first completed version is due at the end of the year, so there is still a lot of time and work to go. The plugins in their current state should give people a taste of what to expect.
With the hot sun beating down on Vancouver I'm somewhat thankful that in the event realm, things are a little slower leading up to the weeks ahead that will be full of networking, socials, education and knowledge sharing. However, there still are a handful of meetups around town this week that are definitely worth checking out.
The Vancouver Django Meetup
Web Analytics Association - Money, Jobs and Opportunity
Wednesday August 20th @ 5:00pm
Third Tuesday Vancouver - Informal Meetup
Wednesday August 20th @ 6:30pm (Yes, on Wednesday)
There's also a Vancouver contingency heading south to Seattle for Gnomedex, including Derek and Airdrie Miller, as other local folks like Duane Storey and Andy Peatling will be retuning from WordCamp. It's been a busy summer and with National Digital Media Day featuring BarCamp Vancouver approaching in September, it looks as though August is simply a warm up.
