conferences | Social Signal

Great news... Northern Voice is on again. Now in its third year, this Vancouver-based conference draws an international audience that ranges from novices to leaders in blogging and the web.

This year, Northern Voice - organized last year by Boris Mann, Brian Lamb, Cyprien Lomas, Darren Barefoot, Kris Krug, Lauren Wood and Roland Tanglao – has moved to bigger digs at UBC. It's running from Feb. 23 to 24, and if it's anything like the last two, it's going to be fantastic.

If you're going to be in or near Vancouver next February, check back on their site regularly for updates – so you can register as soon as it opens (the conference fills up awfully quickly). And if you aren't going to be in Vancouver in February, well, compare the winter climate here to yours and adjust your travel plans accordingly.

BarCamp Vancouver last weekend was inspiring and inspired.

I caught John Ounpuu's introduction to Sutori, a site that gives consumers a place to share stories of customer satisfaction and, probably more often, dissatisfaction. James Sherrett previewed the intriguing AdHack, which will allow people to upload and publish their own ads for products they love... and reap the benefits if the companies behind the products like what they see.

Kate Milberry walked us through the history of tech activism, the wonderful Dethe Elza explained how you can wield Python to warp OS X to your will, Alex explained how you can use tagging to do the same thing to the entire world, and I offered seven tips for better tech presentations. For us the day ended early, but I gather from the blog posts I've read out that there was plenty more where that came from.

With so many conferences geared to monetizing this and finding venture capital for that, it was great to see something organized out of the sheer love of what emerging digital technology can do for people. Congrats to everyone who made this happen.