Corvus Consulting

A rare personal note to the blog today, letting you know that the Illuminares festival happens tomorrow. Also known as the Lantern Festival, this Public Dreams Society production is a signature summer event for Vancouver locals, and one of the purest community experiences I’ve ever seen. I’ve used my summer posting to the Slow Blog project to reflect on the personal and public value in this utterly unique event, and to announce that I’ve recently joined the society’s board of directors.

It’s an amazing event produced by an amazing group of people. It’s a chance to enjoy a family-friendly, non-corporate and truly memorable event. For those interested in technology, culture and the arts, it’s a chance to see how low-tech can create high-grade experiences, and to witness an emerging tradition of even documentation by attendees through cellphones, photos, and blogs.

Hey all y’all Vancouver web geeks, we’re doing a northern version of the Ma.gnolia birthday party here in Van this Thursday, March 22. This is really short notice, but if you can make it to Gastown around 6pm, then we’d love to have you stop by.

Details are, of course, bookmarked at Ma.gnolia.

This weekend, as some bloggers quicker on keyboards will tell you, saw BarCamp land at Vancouver among other places around the world.

The event, an un-conference of web enthusiasts, was held at WorkSpace and came off amazingly well. I have to hand it to the WorkSpace guys for pulling this off in their opening week. I’m unsure if they sleep.

This was my first BarCamp, and it’s exhausting to say the least. Every time you turn around there’s someone new to talk with, brimming with ideas to share. You burn a lot of glucose trying to keep up and assimilate everything that comes your way.

Things I talked about with other attendees:

Ma.gnolia, and social bookmarking in general, of course

Judo and kung fu, after Sarah Pullman’s Yoga For Geeks session that left me refreshed

Bringing web 2.0 and its advantages to family-oriented web surfers

Managing online identities

The sometimes shady world of search engine optimization and how to play fair in search

Dating for geeks, which had a very strong product sales angle

Career transitions

A crash course on tagging, with Alex who tag-teamed me in (love that pun) to talk about the thinking process behind tagging and why it just works.

Tag spam, what it is and just how much it does indeed suck

And it really just keeps going. Darren has posted a roundup of afterparty blogging, along with a link to Flickr photos of the event.

I have to admit I’m not the most comfortable person at these events, but every time I go I forget my apprehensions as soon as I start talking with people. The level of informatlity can be hard to reconcile with your work, but like many new things it takes a bit of courage and the willingness to give up your ego a bit to make it work. The nice thing about it is that the trust you put in the event pays off, and before long you can be among new friends where you only saw strangers an hour ago.