Jan Karlsbjerg - A Great Dane in Vancouver

Vancouver Blogger May Meetup recap

Another good evening of talk, politics and chatter with the Vancouver Bloggers Meetup at Cuppa Joe on Broadway and Main.

No group picture this time, but here’s an action shot of David (in profile) and Gene (in action).

The evening’s participants — site links and RSS feeds:

• Geoff who doesn’t have a public blog.
• David Drucker from LoudMurmurs.com and Drucker.ca
• Gene Blishen from Tinfoiling
• Pete Quily from Adult ADD Strengths and ADD Coach4U
• Al Pasternak from BokashiMan.com
• MJ from Urbanista.ca
• Carol Sill from CarolSill.com
• Isabella Mori from Change Therapy
• Carol Browne from CarolBrowne.com
• John Biehler from JohnBiehler.com and Retro Cactus
• Me from A Great Dane in Vancouver

The discussion topics ranged from Twitter to Shakespeare (whether in Reader’s Digest or unabridged version):

• How long will the information from or about us last on various Internet sites? And what happens when we die — will our sites die with you? I hear that the college-oriented social networking site Facebook has (had?) terms of service wording to the effect that it was only to be used by actual, living people, but how does the center reliably discover that a member has died? And even when a death is a publicly known fact (as in the case of the dead students from the Virginia Tech school massacre), should a deceased member’s page be taken down when it has become a memorial where friends, family and strangers say goodbye to the dead friend, family member, fellow student, etc.?
• A small sample of Scotty’s ashes took a brief trip to space (MSNBC). I’d heard the rocket only went up to 70km and therefore not actually into space (which is usually defined as beginning at 100 km). But it turns out that the flight reached 72 of them there American so-called “miles” which equals 115km, so I stand corrected.
• The new re-packaging of spiritual optimism called “The Secret” was discussed. There was some disagreement about which feature of the product was most loathsome. Is it the crass commercialism of the product and its contributors? Or maybe the fact that the filmmaker had never heard about the concept (the so-called “law of attraction“) two months before the movie production started? I vote for the lies and misrepresentation that can be found already in the cover text: Claims that various historical figures agreed with the principles in the product. Do read Emilly Yoffe’s brilliant action-review “I’ve Got The Secret” on Slate.com or the less polished and much stronger condemnation of The Secret by Aaron Swartz, “The Secret behind The Secret“.
• Does Facebook rule? I personally have no idea since I’ve never used it. Does Twitter rule? Nah, not really. There’s too little sunk cost for each member and the network effect doesn’t really bind you to the service: At any given time, it’s too easy and cost-free to just stop using it.
• The hiring practices of (the B.C. part of) The Active Network (my employer, and maybe yours too if you’re interested?) have to change. The rigid testing process may have worked wonders in the past when both the company (then Class Software) and its hiring needs were much smaller, but it doesn’t fit the current situation, even with the recent changes. Our communication with unsuccessful applicants also needs improvement. I’m working on it!

Here are some other Vancouver blogger Meetup recaps from the archives:

• April 2007
• March 2007
• April 2006
• August 2005 (picnic style)
• February 2005
• December 2004
• November 2004 (the Dave Winer special that was organized outside of Meetup)
• July 2004 (my first Meetup of any kind; I was using Radio Userland at the time)

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