northernvoice09

We are happy that people enjoyed watching Barb and I dance (our dance is the Lindy Hop but we love and admire all social dancing and dance in general) at the Northern Voice 2009 opening party at Federico's. It's always for us been about having fun with whoever we are dancing with and the music; not the steps.  People ask us how we did it or they wistfully say, I'd love to do it but can't because I don't have a partner or my partner won't dance with me or I don't have time or ...

Well this blog post is to say "YES YOU CAN"!

You don't have to be musical and you don't have to be a natural born dancer. You just have to practise practise practise practise.

The Lindy hop basic step ("the swingout") is difficult. It took us two series of dance lessons and social dancing with each other and lots of other people for six months two to three times a week to "get it". Which is to say 75-100 hours.

Then before the kid was born we danced twice a week, took more dance classes went to two Lindy Hop week long dance Camps (Swingout northwest 2000 and 2002) and so after about 1000 hours we are where we are at today. Able to dance with any Lindy Hop Dancer socially. Aware of the imperfections in our technique but having fun with the music and the dance on the rare occasions when we do get out. And all of this without either of us being dancers or having been dancers in our youth (which would obviously accelerate the process a wee bit although I think Barb's musicality and my obsession with swing music and Duke Ellington's music helped a bit).

So what are you waiting for? Find the time, and get out there and dance :-) ! Or develop software or fix bicycle flats or whatever you REALLY want to do that you have been puting off! Just make the time and do it! (And thanks to our awesome swing and Lindy Hop teachers: Graeme and Lisa and Elizabeth,  Tyler and Viva, JoJo, Toby and Tanya, and so many others! And thanks to those who we've had the pleasure of dancing with over the years!)

Here's my Northern Voice 2009 presentation (PDF) about Mobile Video Streaming circa 2009:

Again, I don't have the time but here's a fun game design session for MooseCamp 2009. If you are interested, edit the wiki page and come to the session if approved!

The following ideas are DRAFT (and i bet others have already thought of similar things). Please ADD YOUR OWN and let's discuss at MooseCamp 2009!

Hope to run this game as part of BarCamp Vancouver 2009 or earlier!

Terms:

Identicon = unique graphic generated from a number (originally used by WordPress and other blogging systems to identify people based on their IP address for comments) in this case the number would be latitude and longitude, i.e. GPS coordinates

Yarn Bombing = grafitti with yarn in the real world aka 'knit grafitti'

Identicons, Yarn bombing and Mobile - An eternal golden braid

The idea is a unique mobile tech twist on a scavenger hunt and yarn bombing.

1. the organizers of the game put up a bunch of identicons on a map to identify locations that have been 'yarn bombed'
2. goal: find all the yarn bombs ('ybs') before the other players do
3. mobile twist: you have to prove  you found the yarn bomb by using your mobile phone in one of the following ways
   1. post a picture of the yb to flickr, picasa, twitpic, etc or somewhere on the web and tag it and text the url to the organizers or in some way the organizers can get it electronically
   2. send a text to the organizers proving you found the yb
   3. send an MMS to the organizers proving you found the yb
   4. do a Bright Kite Checkin proving you found the yb
   5. basically anything that you can do from a mobile phone to prove you found the yb without  phoning the organizers or leaving them voicemail!

Variations

1. don't put the identicons on a regular map i.e. make the locations part of the hunt or hint at them e.g. all skytrain stations in Yaletown
2. business model: do this for events as an ice breaking thing
3. don't use the identicon algorithm to generate the graphic, create an algorithm so that the graphic  hints at the location
4. generate the identicons on the fly by putting the ybs on a bicycle or something moving using a mobile app that updates a map on the web or some sort of web based hint!

It's hard to believe how time flies, but the 5th Northern Voice (for the 5th time I am one of the organizers) starts tomorrow with the Federico's dining and dancing opening party,(Scott Nelson with a bit of assistance from myself are providing the WiFi, thanks Scott!), Friday begins the conference proper with a fab social media 101 track organized by Rahel Anne Bailie and Anita Webster, a fantastic mobile track, the MooseCamp unconference and a Stewart Butterfield keynote and Saturday is the more traditional conference day.

So, I don't really have the time but since I love Mozilla, here's one of my Mossecamp ideas for Friday (if you like it, see you on Friday assuming it's accepted!):

In a nutshell:

1. 10 people will signup up to have Roland tape 1-12 second videos of them live (i.e. no editing) on "One way the internet has changed their life."
2. Roland will post them to flickr with a Creative Commons Attribution License to the Mozilla Net Effects Flickr Group
3. The people in the session will watch them and vote on the "best" one (majority rules, my "best" definition: bonus points for fun, other languages, cool things but of course your definition is up to you!)
4. Winner gets a prize. Prize will be a free 1:30 second video taped by Roland on his Nokia N82 on Friday at Moosecamp and edited on iMovie by Roland and submitted to flickr and possibly some Mozilla swag from Zak

More background from Zak:

1. flickr group - http://www.flickr.com/groups/mozillanetfx/
2. Mozilla Net Effects page - https://wiki.mozilla.org/Foundation/Program/Net_Effects
3. Zak's blog post: explaining why videos and the idea behind this! - http://zak.greant.com/what-does-the-net-mean-to-you

Disclaimers and other Blah Blah

1. Zak is an employee of the Mozilla Foundation
2. Roland is Zak's friend, doesn't work for Mozilla but loves Firefox

Convinced? Sign up today only 10 spots available