Here's the crib notes of the first 1.5 days of VIDfest. {Links coming at some point ...}

Wednesday night

Kick off party at the Vancouver art Gallery with the Krazy exhibit. This will take another look to digest the walls of graphic art and manga mania but the free drink ticket and VIP pass helped kick start the conversations on the busy night of Vancouver techie-related events (Launch Party 4 sounds like another noteworthy fest of interconnectivity). Krug and I represented at the party and chilled with presenters Darren Barefoot and Rebecca Bollwitt among other social media super-heros.

Thursday morning

With Vancouver personal expression conference Northern Voice approaching, Dave O, Roland Tanglao and Richard Eriksson preview the Internet Boot Camp track at Moose Camp (Friday Feb 22, 2008).

This year at Moose Camp, Richard will present Blogging 101 and Roland (along with Jordan Behan and Warren Frey) will present Video Blogging 101 to go along with the ad hoc track. On Saturday's Northern Voice, Dave will lay out his pitch to encourage the assembled folks to seize the opportunity to make creative endeavours with integrity and not get hung on stats and fleeting noteriety. Then, plates of steaming tasty Cantonese food arrives to the table at The Boss cafe in Vancouver's Chinatown.

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).

UPDATE: Some starter links (Listen: Google Reader, iTunes, Bloglines Try for Free: Wordpress.com, blip.tv, flickr Strategize and possibly use these non free tools: Bryght, Hipcast and possibly some open source tools WordPress, Drupal, Joomla etc Here's a photo:

I am speaking at the BC Hospitality Industry Conference and Expo today at 1:45 p.m. about Blogging in the Hospitality Industry. See attached PDF but it boils down to:

1. Listen to what the web is saying about your industry.
2. Play around with free services like wordpress.com, flickr, blip.tv
3. Come up with a strategy to actively participate in the online community and conversation about your industry. This is (or will be) a normal part of your internet marketing just like email is today. And if it's a community site you need, Bryght and/or our partners, would love to help.
   
   Tags:

   • bc hospitality industry conference and expo
   • bchice
   • Blogging

Check out our good friends Lee and Sachi LeFever's blog site as they have just posted a blog entry on their travel blog, The World Is Not Flat, that shares with the internet their ways of blogging while journeying around the world over the last year.

Raincity designed the site, while Bryght provides hosting and support. It's tough checking in on these guys cause we're all green with envy, but following their journeys and living vicariously through them over the last year has been a treat. Thanks for the video sharing show guys!