Last night was the first Twestival in Vancouver, part of a global fundraising project bringing together people on Twitter in support of charity:water.
Met a ton of people in real life I follow on Twitter as well as a whole bunch of new people that I’m now following. I shot a pile of photos and put together a short video from the very successful event (apparently enough was raised to build a well):
This past weekend, I participated in my first group photoshoot with members of the Vancouver Strobist group (on Flickr).
After missing out on a studio shoot in January, I was invited to this one at The Dollhouse Studios. The models were members of the Sweet Soul Burlesque troupe and were fantastic to work with despite having a bunch of cameras on them literally all day.
It was pretty cool being around a bunch of other photographers (with a ton of interesting gear) and an stunning group of models with all kinds of energy and creative ideas plus an endless amount of amazing costumes.
I learned a ton about working with models, using my camera in a studio environment and had a great time meeting other local photographers. Not to mention putting together a shopping list of new gadgets I want for my camera bag.
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but can’t wait for the next opportunity to attend one of these events.
Once again, it’s time to start planning for SXSWi which is coming up pretty fast in just under two months. It’s the annual ‘geek summer camp’ held in Austin, Texas every March. Check out my previous posts about it to see why you might want to go.
Now is the time to start doing a few things to maximize your time in the Lone Star state. If you haven’t already booked a hotel room, expect to be spending a lot of time in cabs getting to and from your room out on the interstate and the Austin Convention Center….all the close hotels (walking distance) were booked up last summer.
If you haven’t already registered, you should do it soon since the price goes up the closer it gets. Peter and I booked our flights last weekend….airline prices are down thanks to the current economic situation…$100 less than last year.
If you want to use your iPhone (or any other phone not from the US at least), you’ll probably need to unlock it and acquire a US Sim card. Cheapest route I’ve found still is an AT&T Pay as you go phone which can found almost anywhere in the US (Target, Walmart, 7-11, etc.) for as little as $15 (with a $10 airtime credit). You then add the $19.99 Medianet data plan for unlimited data for a month while you’re in Austin.
When you activate your cheap phone, make sure you choose the option to pay $1 per day of use. It means that you’ll only pay $0.10/minute for most calls (plus $1 for each day you use it) and calls to other AT&T users (like say, anyone following these instructions) are completely free (aside from that initial $1/day). If you don’t use it on a certain day, you don’t pay. Text messages are still a rip off at $0.15 per (incoming or outgoing). Keep in mind you probably won’t be able to use a foreign credit card to top up these phones but plenty of places (including gas stations) sell top up cards.
Now is also a good time to order some Moo cards. I just ordered another batch and it came in less than 2 weeks….last year lots of people were upset because they ordered either too late or it took longer to deliver due to increased demand (not sure if it’s SXSW related but possibly).
I know a few people haven’t been happy with the quality of their moo cards but I’ve ordered at least 5 batches with no issues at all and have been very happy with their quality. I’ve got a few 20% off coupon codes if you’re placing a first time order so leave a comment if you want one.
Finally, now is a good time to start scoping out the activities. Sites like Upcoming already has a number of the parties listed so you can at least start RSVP’ing to those that interest you. Most things you can simply walk up to on the day while you’re there but some require being on a list of some kind in advance due to the huge crowds that get bigger every year. Hopefully Jeremy Kieth will update his fantastic Adactio Austin party list for 2009 soon too. My pals over at Raincity Studios have already booked the biggest party at Southby each year. I stumbled across an Austin Flickr meetup last year that turned out to be really special and it wasn’t on any SXSW agenda.
There is even BarCamp Austin to check out while you’re in town if you want to skip out on SXSW for awhile.
I’ll leave you with an awesome three-letter-word reason to go to SXSW:
This morning I had the pleasure of having breakfast with Jeff Pulver and a few dozen other fine folks at Enigma in Vancouver. Considering it was a pretty early start on a Sunday morning, it was a pretty big turnout.
Jeff organizes these ‘social media breakfasts’ all over the world. Using tools like Twitter and Facebook, he puts out an open invitation for people to come out and experience some ‘real-time social tagging’. It’s an interesting way to meet a bunch of people in a unique way. Basically you are given a couple of name badge stickers (as part of your personal social media toolkit) one for your name and a personal tagline and another to receive small stickers from others with their own tags they create for you after chatting for a bit.
Here’s a short video I shot of Jeff explaining to the crowd his upcoming Social Media Jungle Road Show and his own introduction to the group…I’m particularly surprised/happy about how good the audio turned out from the onboard mic on my D90 considering I was across the room:
It was a fun way to start off the new year reconnecting with many local friends and meeting new ones. Check out my Flickr set for more photos from breakfast.
This was Jeff’s second breakfast trip to Vancouver…unfortunately I couldn’t make the first one last summer so was glad I made the trek downtown today for this one. Thanks again, Jeff!
The format was not unlike a BarCamp where people could submit topics they would present on. Unfortunately I was laying on a beach in Hawaii when it all happened (the advance submissions that is) so I missed the opportunity to participate as a presenter. Fortunately the plan is to have these frequently so there should be more chances to participate. Judging from the turnout, it could have possibly been a day long affair as there was no shortage of interesting topics and people interested in learning more about WordPress.
As much as I like the Network Hub, it’s not the best kind of venue for this kind of event – it’s just not big enough to accomodate the number of people that were interested in attending. There wasn’t nearly enough chairs for everyone and it was pretty tropical in there once people started showing up. There must be some place in Vancouver that can fit a large number of people, has decent wifi and supports some kind of food/drink service. Aside from UBC, SFU or one of the other school venues, there isn’t much that works.
I won’t recap the whole event because as she usually does, Rebecca liveblogged the entire event – well almost all of it since she was also a presentor, Raul covered for her during her segment.
The one presentor that I was surprised by was John Chow. He gave a presentation on making money from your blog. I had heard some (negative) stories about him and was expecting some kind of slimy, Tom Vu-like salesman and was impressed with his openness about how he became successful from blogging. He outlined how much money he makes from his blog, detailed the pricing structures and many key mistakes people make when trying to monitize their sites. His candor and self-deprecating humour was refreshing.
While I don’t necessarily agree with some of the tactics he uses, I don’t see them being much different than what you would see people in other types of business do to be successful – figure out the system and exploit it. I’m also not sure that his approach would work for many bloggers I know but he certainly has an interesting story and I thought he told it well. The audience was certainly hanging on his every word although some folks were definitely not impressed by his methods.
As with many of the local tech events, the evening wrapped up in a local restaurant for drinks with some old and new friends.
I’m looking forward to the next WordCamp for sure. You can see some of the other pictures I took in my WordCamp Flickr set.
