I just sent the announcement below of a Northern Voice pre-event out to our webloggers via the Weblogs@UBC site. Couldn’t hurt to re-post it here as well — if you are able to make it out to UBC this Thursday afternoon, and wish to hang out with Levine, Norman, Toal, myself and whoever else shows up, you are welcome. We won’t be checking for UBC ID at the door.
Social Software Salon @ UBC
The Northern Voice weblog conference (http://2006.northernvoice.ca/) is this week, and I am really excited. Our Saturday registration is fully sold out, and we are down to a handful openings for the Friday Moose Camp. This Thursday (February 9) we are bringing accomplished educational webloggers who are in town for the event out to UBC. Alan Levine (http://cogdogblog.com) from Maricopa College and D’Arcy Norman (http://www.darcynorman.net) from U of Calgary are net-hardened weblog veterans, widely-recognised innovators and very fun, very nice guys. We’ve also got my longtime co-conspirator Jason Toal (http://www.sfu.ca/~jtoal/) from SFU coming down from the mountain, who has been deeply immersed in experience design and social software since 1997.
Rather than host a formal presentation or panel, we wanted an event that better reflected the spirit of social software. So we will be holding a Social Software Salon, an opportunity for Alan, D’Arcy, Jason and myself to interview our weblog and wiki users, and for them to ask questions of us. These guys are all very well-versed in the social dynamics of blogging, academic and educational uses, and extending the online tool set. Each of them are experienced podcasters, and D’Arcy manages the Educational category of the iPodder directory. They are all enthusiastic wikiers, social bookmarkers, and skilled digital photographers. So they will be interested in what you are doing, and between them can converse on any practical, technical, web design or technocultural question you throw at them.
The Social Software Salon is at Telestudios, Room 0110 – 2329 West Mall (the University Services Building) from 12:30-3:00. The session is a drop-in model. There is no beginning or end, come and go as you like. You may talk, listen in, blog, take pictures, record audio or do something else. There’s no requirement to route conversation through the facilitators — digressions and diversions will be encouraged. Armed guards will ensure things don’t get too rowdy. We may stay together as one group, we might split up. I would like to record audio of at least some of the conversations for podcasts, but if that makes you uncomfortable we can turn off the mic. My hope is that we will end up with a collection of audio clips and links that we could turn into a digital snapshot of what social social software is like at UBC and elsewhere in the region right now. I’ve been watching the use of these tools develop over the past couple years, and there are some amazing stories to tell.
The first 20 or so arrivals will receive an amazing superprize of catered sandwiches and drinks. If you’d like to pre-schedule a short time slot (5-15 min) with our guests, if there’s a topic or guest you especially wish to talk with, or if you have any questions about this unorthodox gathering, please drop me an email at: brian.lamb@ubc.ca
If you can’t make it to the session, maybe you can join us by Skype or audio chat?
Once again, Telestudios, Room 0110 2329 West Mall (the University Services Building). 12:30-3:00 — I am certain it’s going to be a fun and provocative time, and it will be even better if you join us. Please feel free to forward this invitation to anyone who you believe would be interested.
Rock on. This should be fun. I guess I should get around to updating the ipodder.org directory before the session…
Are you provding the foil hats?
Too bad Scott Leslie won’t be there. He had a more provocative clothing choice in mind.
Oh to be in Vancouver now that the Moose is there….
I may try to Skype in if that’s okay. Depends on how the Family Saturday goes. 🙂
Unfortunately, the OSCMS Summit session on Identity Issues, Solutions, and Implementation at UBC Downtown is going to conflict with this.
Gardner – this hootenany is on Thursday afternoon, so shouldn’t conflict with a Family Saturday 🙂
I’m guessing fur-lined foil hats will be crafted for the event…
Oooo, wish I could be there! On Thursday I’ll be… um, got it right here … Right, Thursday’s Houston. Doing a workshop. Darn. I’ll check in for the post-workshop report though. Break a leg! Heck, break two.
If I can Skype in, I’ll be there in my fur lined foil hat and Team Canada thong(tm)!
Uh – who do I skype to, Brian?
Gardner & Rob — you have no idea how welcome your remote participation would be to the Salon. I have my fears that UBC proxies may cause trouble (I’ll try to address that), but please try. 12:30-3:00 PST — my Skype handle is brlamb. I’ll try to get the Skype names of the amigos so we have multiple paths in.
Sure I’ll be there!
As you already know, Brian, I’m interestaed in the educational application of these tools, especially in Blogs!
I really hope you’re going to share the record.
Letizia
my skype handle = j_toal
I’ll be running audacity and recording everything within range. I have not recorded skype audio live at this point, but this seems like the perfect event to test it out.
“If you’d like to pre-schedule a short time slot.”
Pre-schedule? Oh, Brian…
Letizia – we intend to share everything people feel cool with sharing.
Jason – so glad you can make it man.
Jon — not sure if you are making fun of my word usage or my laughable attempt at imposing order on the chaos. My head’s too buzzed to figure it out. In any event, I just hope you come.
Gentle fun at word usage, Brian. (Qv. “pre-order.”)
Sadly, I won’t be able to make it: teaching intervenes.
Thought it was that. I’ve spewed out a lot of verbiage the past week, much of it like that.
Ah, tis a pity you can’t join us:
If your blog post today is any indication, you’ve got more to say on this subject then ten minutes on a panel is likely to afford:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/posthegemony?m=82
I’m really looking forward to attending via Skype.
With permission, I hope to record some audio (also with Audacity) and play excerpts during tonight’s EdTechTalk Brainstorm webcast at http://edtechtalk.com