It actually happened. There *actually* is a first ever National Digital Media Day. Thanks in large part to Lynda Brown, the woman with the vision.
And check out Buzz Bishop’s story in today’s 24 Hours Vancouver.
Here is a long list of happenings (happening right now!) right across this country. Direct your content – tweets, photos, news, stories – on how you participated in the day to the new site.
Also check out our Ning Community and Facebook Group and become a member.
I am quite certain there will be a decent amount of coverage on this year’s VIDFEST across the various channels.
Starting with the mobile, check out cellmap for mapping out your whereabouts and getting VIDFEST right onto your cell.
Moving into the internets (slash mobile to some extent), you can keep up with various bloggers and writers on the VIDFEST blog, or you’ll likely find VIDFEST coverage here here here here and here here here, and no doubt many others.
If you’re Twittering, don’t forget the tweme hash mark like so “#vidfest” for your fellow tweeters tweeting to follow and, uhm, tweet back? (what exactly is the correct cyber name for these bloody things? I stopped paying attention to all of the cute online naming conventions.)
I think you can still register… perhaps – even if it is just for one day or feature.
Enjoy the show!
Most conferences I attend or participate in, or co-produce for that matter, tend to lean a tad more toward the “geeky” type of affairs as opposed to the more creative. Working in social media and technology for the past several years, this fact is just par for the course and happens to be the kind of event I enjoy, much to my own surprise and even though some of the time those uber geeky topics and conversations are over my head. It is these conferences that have helped in convincing the rest of the world that being geeky is in style and they have assisted in bringing the affectionate term “cool geek” into the mainstream.
I definitely don’t rank in the cool geek stardom status. I can write *some* code and I built an entire Flash website from scratch, once. I was the art student who wished her ways of straight-A’s in math didn’t up and vanish from the left brain after Math 12. I love technology and everything fabulously geeky about it. I dream about better applications and how I could implement them, but I can’t build them. I think what I love most about technology is how creative it can be. I think that’s why I’m still here. What does any of this mean and where might you fall? Are you a geeky artist? Or an artsy geek?
VIDFEST is the perfect answer for the creative geek and techy artist in you. This year will be my third consecutive year at VIDFEST and it’s one of my favourite conferences for this reason. It tends not to focus so much on the business of technology or creative content, but more on creative content and contribution itself – how creativity advances technology and how technology inspires us all to think creatively. It fuels my definition of inspiring. It’s the perfect equation, if you will, of techy and creative, where geek meets artist.
If you’re visiting the VIDFEST site in these last few days and hours before things kick off, wondering if you should attend, you should, no matter what side of the brain is urging you to. The official program alone is reason enough. But if it’s not, speaking from an artsy-geekish perspective: You will meet great people, you will have memorable connections, you will have fun, you will be inspired.
Photo Credits: kk+ and Mark Busse
xposted from VIDFEST Blog
“Help me help you.”
Bridging Media is a new event that Erica Hargreave and I are organizing for March 29th, 2008.
To register, please visit the Bridging Media event page – we have a limited space for numbers, so head on over there and stick your name up.
In a nutshell, over the past 6 months, Erica and I, along with Kris Krug and Boris Mann, have had numerous conversations and brainstorming sessions around the continuing disconnect and gap between the broadcast and digital media worlds. This is an area in which Achilles Media has been involved for a number of years, as nextMEDIA has had huge success in Banff and is the sister conference to the Banff TV Festival. So we reached out to Mark Greenspan at Achilles and he was more than happy to get behind this event here in Vancouver as a “friend of the event”. Mark also suggested we use this event as a platform to help shape ideas and Banff’s pitching competitions – he’s absolutely right.
The Centre For Digital Media has also come on board as a major sponsor as the host of the event. They have graciously offered their amazing space “The Hanger” to house our inaugural event.
We’ve just begun the plight to take this idea and make it into a bit of a beast (we hope). So far we have had a pretty tremendous and supportive response. We are on the hunt for sponsorships, will be shaping and finalizing the speakers list over the coming weeks – and we always welcome more people-power – Gregg Scott just stepped up to create our logo – thank-you Greg!
I arrived this morning into Toronto just after 6am (wow, red eyes are certainly to be desired), grabbed an easy cab ride into town, checked into a posh, comfortable hotel next to Massey Hall in the midst of all the Young Street action in the downtown core, and found light jazz wooing me into the room from the corner, crisp, white bed sheets turned down, enough space to cleanly execute a cartwheel across the floor and wifi! Exhausted from my fabulous flight, I slept, out like a light.
Good start.
Enough of the fluffy stuff – here’s where the ‘what’s happening here is important’ bit is best illustrated. This afternoon, all of the finalists of this year’s CNMA gathered at the Canadian Film Centre for a BBQ. This welcoming afternoon provided an informal time for the finalists to get to know one another. Adam Froman and Ana Sorreno both had a few casual, friendly, welcoming words to say. But what they said is the good part: this award show is 100% about celebrating great Canadian work. What more can you ask for? Especially when it’s coming from a group of leaders who throw this together and pull off 2 full days for the finalists, and it’s all stemming from a passion for recognizing work in digital media in this country.
Ana Serrano travels around the world, most recently having just returned home from Cannes, and she made a point emphasizing the fact that the world is watching Canada and the amount of fantastic work coming out of our country – the CNMA show is one example of highlighting Canadian talent. Why not embrace this?
I know that award shows are the most likely target (and easy) for slagging and negativity in any industry, but what is being celebrated here in Toronto this week is fantastic for the industry. I’d love to see the many talented people in technology in this country play a role and get involved in the event. What I see as an important element to this celebration continuing to being successful is to write, blog, talk about, advertise, whatever what’s going on across the board in digital media in the country – to do just that, we all need to support the cause and write about what we’re all doing! Our culture does not celebrate our own near enough.
(And as an FYI: the people organizing are not adverse to this show hittin’ the road, in fact, they encourage it moving across the country to another city – anyone up for the challenge?)
After Monday night’s show, there will be plenty of footage, interviews and wrap info on the last 24 hours on the CNMA blog – this is one place where the conversations can continue about who is making waves and which people and companies are paving the way in technology and digital media in Canada on the world’s stage.
Last night I sat on a panel for an event organized by New Media BC, in conjunction with Wired Woman and Bell Canada, and was fortunate enough to have 3 brilliant and successful women in the digital media sector in Vancouver sitting next to me: Emma Payne from At Large Media, Kiana Mohseni from EA and Jennifer Ouano of Elastic Entertainment.
We were brought together to speak to a room of about 30, mostly women, and share our professional experiences, our successes and challenges, the trends we’ve observed and to discuss ways in which the technology sector could become more attractive and less of an intimidating space for women.
All of the attendendees participated and generated some good convo, ideas, and inspiration. It was nice to connect with people who’ve “gone before”, who have experienced a ton to share with those who would like to jump into technology and into being a cool geeky woman in technology!
Find out more about these types of professional events through the New Media BC events page and Wired Woman.