Nearly 300 people gathered for Barcamp Vancouver 2009 #bcv09 yesterday at Discovery Parks Vancouver – the old QLT building on Great Northern Way (which has amazing office space available, btw). It was my first time attending this annual “unconference” of local tech and creative folks who meet to give and receive information and ideas.

At 9:30 a.m. Darren Barefoot (at left, in photo) began the the “schedule jam” process. At right, David Eaves is one of the folks who lined up and gave short descriptions of their topics. Darren slotted them into time periods in rooms named after the Vancouver Canucks – and then we chose which ones to attend.

I went to a talk on W2 Media Centre to learn more about this exciting project in the old Woodwards building. Soon Downtown Eastside residents will have access to arts and media facilities and creative services including a 200-seat performance space, a community TV studio, an FM radio station, a gallery and a café (open 24 hrs) that will run as a social enterprise to support the Centre. W2 website says: “It will be home to a diverse grouping of Vancouver arts and community service organizations offering developmental programs in writing, radio and television production, painting, sculpture, photography, mixed media, video and cross-media.”

Follow W2 on Twitter @W2Woodwards.

At a second event, Dr. Raul Pacheco Vega – @hummingbird604 – invited participants to talk about a topic that generated discussion earlier this week online: “Freelance is Not Free.” People shared their advice, opinions, and experiences on offering free service and consultation to friends and non-profit associations.

A photographer mentioned something that galled him after he had volunteered his time to shoot events for nonprofit groups. He noticed the paid catering staff and thought: “Surely they could come up with some money for the photographer.” Our creative work has value. We need to eat!

I liked a suggestion from Jennifer Watkiss re: helping friends. You can say (and I paraphrase): “Okay. I have a couple of hours to talk about your idea. How about if you take me to lunch and you can tell me what you are doing? If it’s a big project, I’ll tell you more about my hourly rates.”

After lunch, I went to “After the walk” – i.e. the photowalk (see Tyler Ingram’s post) a group went on in the morning. Photographer John Biehler showed us his fave photos from the photowalk and explained how he uses Aperture to tag, process, and organize them.

It was a pleasure to see these great photos. Very inspiring! I need new ways to deal with my own photos – so I appreciated seeing how the professionals deal with it. I realize how much more I could be doing. Even iPhoto would be a step up for me, and I think I’m about to get a new macbook pro…

Two other photographers talked about how they process photos. One of them actually brought analogue film developing canisters (which evoked bad memories of the darkroom in journalism school at Langara!)

Next I went to The Accidental Activist, a presentation by Jennifer Watkiss. She told us how she organized a bike ride with friends that turned into a high-profile, counter-protest covered by local and national media. Jennifer conceived “Critical Manners” after feeling irritated by the monthly Critical Mass rides in which up to 1,000 cyclists take over the streets of Vancouver’s downtown core and disobey the rules of the road. She said it was very cool to explore the CBC media studios while waiting for her interview – and, most of all, fun to get out for a big ride with friends.

Next I checked out a talk on happiness – how it doesn’t correlate with GDP. It was a complex topic that needed much more time than we had to discuss it. When people in marketing talk about human “needs” being met by consuming products, I have a lot of questions. Personally, when I buy new running shoes, I’m thinking about my own feet. I want to have an enjoyable running experience. I don’t care what other people think about my shoes. It’s not because I want to improve my relationships with others; I just want new shoes so my feel feel good.

I left the talk thinking about a suggestion that, in future, we try to think more deeply about real motives when we desire a material possession. Are we trying to connect with people and use possessions to gain acceptance? (Or do we just yearn for cool stuff because it’s cool?)

The final talk of the day was Online Identity / Brand Management / Who are you? led by Theron McCollough. Theron is working on a service for managing and linking all our online identities. Our group talked about how open (or private) we feel about our online venues. We touched on the topic of employers looking at people’s Facebook accounts. I wish employers would just realize that everyone has a private life and just because someone drinks beer straight out of a keg at a university party, it doesn’t mean they’ll be a bad employee! They could be a great employee and also quite fun at staff parties! I shared this view and another participant said he thought we were really going in that direction – that in five years, we will be used to having so much personal content online and employers won’t pay as much attention to it.

One employer in the group, Glenn Hilton, president of ImageX Media (drupal designers) said he likes to look at Facebook to see if potential employees share similar values to his own. He said he recently made a final choice on a new employee after getting to know more about her life and personality via Facebook. Glenn said he is very open and likes to know about his staff so he can give them encouragement and support them through the struggles of life.

Theron and Glenn recommended these sites for helping us keep track of our multiple passwords and subscriptions to social media sites.

Knowem.com
Checks the availability of your brand name, user name or vanity URL on 120 popular Social Media websites.

posterous.com
This twitter/ blog combo lets you post photos, MP3s, videos, and documents by sending an email to: post@posterous.com

Unhub.com
Showcases all your web profiles at a single URL. (your facebook, twitter, linkedin, flickr, …)

iam.no
I don’t speak Norwegian – but, as I learned today, employers in Norway can go here to learn about prospective employees. It translates “Do you know who I am?”

At the wrap-up, a participant said: “I’ve been here all day and my brain feels like my stomach after thanksgiving dinner. Thanks everyone.” My sentiments exactly.

I’d love to hear what other participants got out of it…