Tag: Northern Voice

The Northern Voice wrap-up session is now occurring. Great that they are having this today, especially after some feedback (from me and perhaps others) that last year things just ended without any closure. Hurray, I won a bag for having come here from the furthest away – New York.

Cool bag I won with the Flock logo on it. Will take a photo of it and up on Flickr it will go!

Nice brief session — to the point, with some conference-goer recognition, debrief, and next-steps. Who could ask for anything more? Well, for those of us who can, there is a #nv08 wiki page for feedback!

Technorati Tags: nv08,northernvoice,flock,feedback

My friend Arjun is speaking at Northern Voice right now. What a booming voice and feeling of authenticity within government. Arjun is on the City Council of Kamloops, and it is inspiring that he blogs publicly and uses it as a forum to communicate with his constituents.

Somebody in the audience just mentioned that this is a powerful idea for a politician to publicly speak about issues. I wonder if anybody in the US does this?

As a politician, he has an ego, but this is still a challenge.

When Arjun started his blog, he had to write a disclaimer about why he was going to blog about it. It also made people nervous, especially since he is on the inside. “I almost have to be an ambassador for transparency.” Wow, great quote.

Somebody just shared that the mayor of Dawson City is also a blogger.

Arjun is discussing some really interesting items about how he interacts with his neighbors and colleagues in his town. It must be a challenge for him to hear criticism of his voting and his work from the population. I have never seen such clear interaction between a politician and the ordinary folk. I can’t imagine American politicians (nobody national, and not even local in Manhattan) having something like this without being so nervous about social media.

I wonder if my politicians have ever considered this? I should look into this. Thank you for beginning this conversation for and with us, Arjun!

Chris started by asking people what blogs are, and people yelled out definitions. The big question is not the definition, and there are lots of other examples for what they are.

This session is supposed to be a panel discussion, and the panel was seated in the audience, and the discussion about what a blog is and why people use them. The other panel discussants are Alan Levine, Nancy White, D’Arcy Norman, Scott Leslie, Brian Lamb.

There are lots of technologies out there to share our presence. “I feel like to little butter on too little bread,” which is what Chris quoted from the Lord of the Rings.

Somebody discussed how Twitter is a place for following others who “get off” on the same things I am interested in. Interesting.

Twitter is like doodling. Interesting. Use it as an outlet, but always remember that it is being Googled (my comment). D’Arcy and others then discussed how Twitter can be private, so it becomes more of an opportunity to share with a small and more select group of people and colleagues.

We have more ways to have presence, but we also have less people knowing things about us? This is what happens when there are lots of people following us who do not know us.

What is the implication of the disconnect between early adopters to social media and when the mass of people begin using it?

This session seems like a brain dump, and I find it very exciting. I am not sure exactly how to characterize it, but I think that Chris’ comments about his being a post-post-modernist. Like it and find it very valuable. Perhaps this involves reflective practice?

For Chris, the most important things about Northern Voice for Chris is to hear the stories about why people started to and continue doing this.

Excellent! This session is great food for thought. Last year I would have been threatened during this session, but now I have more food for thought.

My conversation with Stewart Mader at the conclusion about the value of reflective practice was very valuable as well.

Technorati Tags: nv08,northernvoice,Chris Lott,Alan Levine,Nancy White,D’Arcy Norman,Scott Leslie,Brian Lamb.

Nancy White is so engaging, even coming in late to her session.

I was interested in attending her session, but thought it was a little intimidating as I sometimes feel a bit threatened making images and then letting other people see them. Interesting what holds us (or at least me) back. But, rather than stay with something that is not useful for me, I took steps to change and have already found value.

I am already seeing value in this session, as it is pushing me to some of my own limits.

She is now speaking about how images can play a role, especially as she started to limit her inner sensor.

Everybody can draw, and “the whole body stuff” can assist. Use crayons and large paper to write on the wall to enhance creativity. She draws icons and has a wiki page set up for them.

Images have a powerful affect on our lives, and the hand-drawn image has a powerful affect on our lives. She has been collecting more material and resources about visual thinking.

I am always amazed at how I can learn anywhere if given some opportunities and an open-mind. I wonder how I can increase these opportunities and try to learn more?

Technorati Tags: nv08,northernvoice,nancy white

Marc Cantor is speaking at Northern Voice now about Bringing Social to Software. Kris Krug gave a nice introduction to Marc.

He started by speaking about social features integrated into software.

http://marc.blogs.it

He spoke about giant databases and social networks, which allow people to have hundreds of friends. With those numbers, “friends” no longer matter.

Not finding Marc’s talk very useful; I think I must have missed something while I was trying to get my wireless connection to work better.  Other people seem to be engaged, but that does not mean that it works for everybody (me).

I think I will go to see what Nancy White it doing.