Well, alas no FreetheNet here at the YWCA on Beatty Downtown Vancouver so will limp along with the delayed coverage of Kris Krug and Rob Cottingham's spiel to a crowded room of PR and Marketing minded peeps.

6:31
Okay, the intros are starting at the Vancouver High-Tech Communicator's Exchange meeting. VHCE HTCE are an organization with about 440 people on the contact list and they put on events inexpensively, run by volunteers, with top notch speakers form the community.

6:33
HTCE Members get a discount on Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo's book "Getting to First Base" a contemporary guide to savvy marketing.

6:34
Upcoming events focus on convergence, lead generation (getting sales and marketing working together) and more workshops to help these PR pros get new media savvy.

6:35
Lovely intro for Kris (he has a great speechwriter ;-)) - ditto for Rob (who came recommended from Darren Barefoot who's garnered 3 mentions already despite being in Morocco).

Rob and cohort Alex are top notch strategic consultants as Social Signal. Pro speech writer Rob doubles as a funny guy - stand up and comic writer - he has a cold to go with his dry and intelligent sense of humor

6:36
I wave hello as they introduce me as the token citizen journalist (that's me on the floor in the front).

The freethenet.ca crew of tech-revolutionaries met up last night to discuss "what's up? what's next how's it going?" I popped in for a bit (in between watching the Canucks lose to the Red Wings - argh!) to grasp the tenor of the non-organization in the wake of this heady couple of months.

First i gotta say ... to see a bunch of people voluntarily meeting up to talk about something that has no opportunity to make any of them money yet takes up substantial time and mental resource, is remarkable.