Tag Archives: vancouver

My friend Gene.

I’m a big fan of GonzoBanker.

When I first started working at Vancity, I was brand new to financial services and started looking at industry websites to help orient and ground me in my new job.

I quickly came across GonzoBanker, and it is now one of the only leftovers from those early days of bookmarking. Their irreverent coverage of how IT issues can aid and hinder financial institutions is both useful and entertaining.

So today, I was thrilled to see that they named my friend Gene Blishen as their GonzoBanker of the Month.

Gene is my hero. He is a philosopher, humanitarian, technologist, futurist, banker and a decent, decent man. I look forward to reading his blog whenever he updates it, and his name always comes up when the people I respect the most name the people they respect the most.

It is an honour to be his direct BC credit union peer, be able to access his sage advice and plan BarCampBankBC with him.

So congrats Gene. Well deserved!

In Vancouver? Check out the Internet Marketing Conference.

Internet Marketing Conference - Vancouver, September 11-12I’m very excited about the Internet Marketing Conference coming to Vancouver September 11th and 12th of this year at the Coast Plaza Hotel.

This is a big international conference, which has occurred in Barcelona, New York, Bulgaria, Montreal, Helsinki, Stockholm, Berlin, Las Vegas and Copenhagen over the last few years. It was held in Vancouver back in 2002 and now it’s returning.

The list of speakers is crazy-good. They include Jeremiah Owyang (Forrester), Gary Angel (Semphonic), Darin Sarlabous (Aeroplan), Adam Audette (AudetteMedia), Anil Batra (Zero Dash 1), Geno Prussakov (AM Navigator), June Dershewitz (Semphonic), Andre Charland (Nitobi), Eric T. Peterson (Web Analytics Demystified), Tom Leung (Google), Bob Page (Yahoo!), Jason Burby (ZAAZ), Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo (Capulet Communications), Robbin Steif (Lunametrics), Xavier Casanova (Liveclicker), and Jonghee Jo (Victoria’s Secret).

I’m incredibly honoured to be among them, presenting about Vancity’s online efforts, engaging people in our values and socially responsible brand.

Vancouver doesn’t bring this kind of A-list together all that often, so it’ll be great to get them all here at the same time to discuss what’s happening in the world of online marketing.

On a personal note, after several presentations in several different cities over the last few months, it’s nice to have the summer away from conferences, and then have the opportunity to speak in my home town.

Oh, and by the way, for those of you who wonder about the efficacy of LinkedIn, the conference organizers, who are based in Sweden, found me via LinkedIn and after a few emails back and forth asked me to present.

An update on BarCampBankBC.

BarCampBankBC on FacebookHere’s a little update on BarCampBankBC.

We started a Facebook page. You can sign up for the event there and use it to help spread the word.

Pecha Kucha
We decided to do a Pecha Kucha to close out Day One. What’s a Pecha Kucha? Glad you asked.

Pronounced “peh-chak-cha,” it is a mix of show-and-tell, open-mike night and happy hour. It has become the forum for ideas on design, architecture and lots of other stuff. Pecha Kucha has swept the world in just four years now having taken place in over 80 cities globally. Each presenter is allowed 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds each. This gives each presenter 6 minutes 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter is up. This keeps presentations concise, the interest level up, and gives more people the chance to show.

We have 12 spots open. To grab the spot you want, add your name and presentation description in the table on the wiki.

38 people so far
We currently have 38 people signed up on the wiki, and I’m very excited at the diversity of attendees. You can see the full list here.

Sponsors

We now have all our sponsors in place, which is very exciting, and helps keep our costs way down. They include:

So make a plan to come to BarCampBankBC and join the conversation. We’d love to see you here…

PS: Tim also has a post today, where you can download some nice banners for BCBBC, like this one.