B. Mann Consulting

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Longer post on DemoCampVictoria01 forthcoming over on Bootup Labs, but this was a short little interview I did about the Juliet condo development, where the event was held.

So far, they get the "fanciest DemoCamp ever" award for the nice selection of wine and cheese to kick things off....

Have I mentioned that most of these startup / tech events I'm posting full details on at the Bootup Labs blog? For now, you'll have to suffer the cross posting:

• April 3rd: DemoCampVictoria01, with Mark Lise posting a buzz summary on his blog -- anyone else heading over to Victoria for this?
• April 10th: DemoCampVancouver06, a full posting including speaker details over on BUL
• April 14th - 15th: Open Web Vancouver, a great new event put on mainly by the Vancouver PHP crew that is expanding to cover the entire "open" web.

A bit of an embarrassment of riches, really. We've got lots of great tech related events happening here in Vancouver, and more to come.

Update: oh, yeah, and of course Bridging Media is this coming weekend, March 29th, but I think they may already be full (I'm speaking).

Why yes, I am continuing the tradition of not-real-blogging-its-just-about-event-posting :P

So, the first DemoCampVancouver01, held at WorkSpace, is over. And no blog post ahead of time from me!

But that, in part, is what this post is about.

See, I procrastinated making a post. I used a bunch of channels to get the word out about this event. I added some subtle links in earlier posts to this blog, I made an entry on Upcoming.org, we made a mailing list, and then....and then I decided to experiment with Facebook.

I created a DemoCampVancouver group, and I made an event posting, and I invited all my friends. And Facebook has this built in ability to pass on these type of postings/notifications, and it spread even further. As of today, there are almost 100 members in the Facebook group.

So, Facebook works. It helped that WorkSpace promoted the event "live" to all its members, who are naturally an entrepreneurial group of people. But...well, even with the talk of Facebook as platform, it's inherently closed nature, it's non-participation in the open web...bugs me.

Isn't this why I'm working on identity? So we can build Facebook in a distributed matter, everywhere?

...but I digress. The evening was great, we had about 50 people out, way more interest in presenting that there was time for, and a really engaged/interesting/awesome group of people. Look to the various channels of the Internet universe for more info, check out the DemoCampVancouver tag, and we'll update the wiki with more information. Thanks to all for coming out, tell all your many tribes about this, and let's get prepped for some Powerpoint Karaoke for next time...

Jenny Yang organized another get together over beer tonight – Wednesday, Nov. 29th – at Steamworks at 5pm (entry on upcoming.org).

See a previous post on how this came to be, which also talked about the potential for a Demo Camp Vancouver. Follow that link and you'll see that Megan Cole has now picked up that torch and is going to kick off a first Demo Camp in the new year.

It's snowy and cold outside, and while you might not want to venture outside, you've probably been huddling indoors for days now. Come hoist a beverage with us down at Steamworks instead...

Wasn't that a fun title? Not quite correct, of course -- but Jenny Yang who works at the Business Development Bank of Canada aka BDC did end up paying for beer at the Yaletown Brewery this afternoon. Thanks, Jenny! Other attendees were David Gratton, Michael Cole, and Sanja Khanna.

Now that I've got your attention, what am I talking about? Well, after Bryan and Stephanie Rieger of Yiibu left Vancouver (again!) to head back to Thailand, a bunch of people felt that the grassroots nature of Mobile Monday in Vancouver aka MoMoVan kind of went away. An email discussion about potentially organizing some more grass roots events in Vancouver led to this first meeting tonight.

I actually was filling in for Roland (off in Rotterdam), who's the real mobile evangelist around. As it turns out, the discussion turned to a much broader theme than just mobile. Maybe something like a DemoCamp -- regular presentations in Vancouver that bring together business, technical, academia, and content folks. Maybe this

DemoCamp Toronto is a great example, although I do think it is quite tech centric (I could be wrong). We've recently had BarCamp Vancouver (tech/entrepreneur/++), Case Camp (marketing) and Art Camp (content / media). What with great music and movie talent here in the city, plus excellent tech roots, this kind of cross disciplinary event might be just thing.

So...what's the stumbling block? When do we do the first event? Who do we invite? Well, much like the Innovation Commons, there is only so much time in the day when you're also running a business. And...what's the purpose of this thing? Is it "just another DemoCamp"? How do we attract cross disciplinary folks?

As a next step, the attendees decided on homework -- writing up a paragraph stating:

• what you would want out of such an event or what would be your interest, and how you would describe what this event should be or do?
• drivers and blockers: what drivers are there for doing such an event in Vancouver? are there any blockers?
• what is your definition of success of such an event? (e.g. number of attendees, more companies started in Vancouver, etc.) 

Rather than just for the attendees at this meeting, I'm giving this homework to everyone. Put your answer on the DemoCampVancouver page or on your blog and add a link on that page.

Even better...someone interested in organizing this? Go for it!