As most of you probably already know, Northern Voice is just around the corner - it’s kicking off on Thursday night with an evening of fun and dancing at Fredrico’s Supper Club, followed by two days of what - in my opinion - is set to be one of the best blogging/ social media conferences in Canada this year.

What you may not know is that this year I’ve been involved with the organizing committee and I will be speaking on a panel. Prior to this year, I’d not been on an organizing committee for a conference and I had no idea exactly how much work was involved to put on an event this size. Added to this is the communities passionate and vocal interest in the conference - which is absolutely amazing. The team behind the conference are all passionate, busy, and ultimately dedicated to making Northern Voice a smashing success for the 5th year in a row. The other organizers behind Northern Voice this year are Alexa Booth, Brian Lamb, Cyprien Lomas, Dale McGladdery, James Sherrett,  Julie Szabo, Kris Krug, Lauren Wood, Lori Pike, Roland Talango, Shane Birley, and Travis Smith.

The panel I’m on is Who Are You? Defining Yourself in the Online World. I’m really excited about this panel, as I will be joined by some of my favorite Vancouver social media ladies - Nadia Nascimento, Rebecca Bollwitt, and Linda Bustos with Monica Hamburg moderating - which will be a full time job as the four of us can really get going.

The panel will discuss the various social networking sites that can be utilized to build your brand online, and identify advantages and pitfalls of these sites, their usage, and their relationship to one another. During the discussion, they will provide context for the growing significance of social networking for personal brands, as we discuss the paths each of us took in order to build our personal online reputations.

As well, we will go through the paths that we each took build our personal online reputations. Along with the steps that we would do differently if we were to do it over again. In the spirit of social media, we will end the panel by opening the floor for a group conversation.

Immediately following Northern Voice is Illuminate Yaletown - this event is unrelated to Northern Voice but looks like it will be a great way to end the conference. This event will be a great opportunity for everyone who attended PhotoCamp at Northern Voice to put their new skills to use.

Miss604 - who also happens to be on my Northern Voice panel has done a great review of the event. The event takes place from 5:29pm to 9:29pm in Yaletown’s heritage district (Hamilton and Mainland between Davie and Nelson) everyone is invited to come and enjoy light installations, music, colour-changing helium orbs, light graffiti, fire breathing and many other dazzling displays.

As the only outdoor event to take place in Vancouver at this time of year, this event will bring light to a gloomy night. Featuring light installations developed by artists and architects, cutting edge music and interactive activities, illuminate yaletown will allow attendees to see Vancouver as it has never been experienced before. [Yaletown]

6S Marketing is a sponsor of the event and we will be putting on a light show from our office. We’re located at 402-1120 Hamilton Street, near the intersection at Helmcken Street. So if you make it out to Illuminate Yaletown, make sure you keep an eye out for our display. We’re helping to put together the 2009 Illuminate Yaletown Photo Contest that is being hosted on Flickr. More than $500 in cash and Yaletown restaurant gift certificates are available to be won for online photo entries including best photos by popular vote, best photos by judges selection, as well as “best collection” “fastest uploads.” So make sure you bring your cameras and add your pics to the flickr group.

Along with all of the other fun and exciting things that have been happening in my life, I’m now a contributer to the Georgia Straight Tech section.  I’ll be writing a post every two weeks for the Straight - some of which will live online and some of which will make it into the print paper.  This week, I wrote about trends in social media, I’m not sure what my next post will be on, but it will have a bent towards social media and tech.

This is a really fun addition to everything that’s been happening - starting a new job, helping organize Northern Voice, getting ready for my panel at Northern Voice (a post on this will be coming soon!), and starting bootcamp again in the morning (brr it’s cold out in the morning right now). I may also have another big announcement coming soon, but I’ll wait till it’s confirmed before I let you know about it.