Hi, I'm Jeff. I'm the most recent addition to the Raincity Studios team, taking on the role of Marketing Director, and have just relocated to Vancouver from Montreal. It's only been a couple of weeks and I'm just starting to get acclimated to the city, but my experience thus far has been great. I thought I'd share a few things I've learned about the city so far:

5. Vancouver has a (Beautiful) Reputation

It may not be the best gauge of place, but you can learn a lot about a city by what people tell you when they find out you're moving there. Sure, this kind of assessment is bound to be full of stereotypes; I received several comments about organic food, lulu lemon and general fondness towards the caliber of homegrown decriminalized products. But more than anything, Vancouver seems to be a city that is admired by people everywhere. It falls into the category of "Canadian cities people outside of Canada have heard of" and I often received the same response: "oh, I've always wanted to go there - I've heard it's soooo beautiful!" Well, it's true. Vancouver is beautiful. Even on an gloomy overcast morning, knowing the mountains are just beyond the clouds and ocean's a stone's throw away makes up for it all.

4. Everyone has an opinion on the Olympics

Arriving at the vancouver airport, it's overwhelmingly apparent to any visitor that the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games are coming to Vancouver. From the ubiquitous Inukshuk to the giant sized LED olympic rings that greet you as you're leaving, the airport, like the city, seems painted in olympic colours. And all of this excitement has indeed stirred up a bit of controversy as anticipated costs are beginning to soar and locals residents are voicing their concerns over how the city will be impacted during and after the games.

While the opinions about the games are mixed, everyone I meet at least seems to have one. Some people are very enthusiastic and excited about the attention the games will bring Vancouver while others are more critical of the effect the games will have on the city and local culture. While both sides may never be completely happy with how the games turn out, it's encouraging to at least see so many people engaged and aware of what's happening. Coming off of the last summer olympics in Beijing where media coverage was problematic, I'm excited to see how Vancouver is going to pull this off and hopeful about opportunities for social media creators to record and share their olympic experience. The more people who have an opinion, the more people will be engaged and the more people will participate and help to shape the character of these games and influence how they will be remembered.

Thursday night was the Best of 604 Awards at The Cellar. Miss 604 (and 778 and 250) Rebecca Bollwitt and her hardworking posse hosted a event which went off better than anyone could have expected. I mean, an inaugural event to give prizes to bloggers? Would anyone show up? Would anyone care? Yes and yes!

While our co-workers partied at the office, Kris and I headed to Granville St. with a band of scallywags. The place was packed, the beverages flowed, and the conversations didn't stop.

While i know *a lot* of people here in Vancouver who are writing blogs, recording podcasts etc., i couldn't help but notice how many faces i didn't know. A quick chit-chat proved that we are all just one degree of separation away and this internet-y stuff has moved out of the basement and onto the red carpet (despite the whining by a few notable yet clueless trolls).

Thanks to your votes and support, Raincity Studios' Blogs and Pods won the award for Best Company Blog. Thanks for that - really, thanks.

Started back in the day (Spring 2004) with Rob and Mark writing about Legos and CSS, before moving onto Will Pate and Megan Cole writing about building community with insightful and witty missives and interviews.

The blog continues to evolve through to today with a deep mix of long-form essays about technical, business, and cultural topics - the Olympics, Drupal, jQuery, geek camps/event/un-conferences, international open culture biz and software ... you are pleased and that makes us happy.

Since this event is sure to turn into an annual event, i'll advise Rebecca to get a platform and a podium to address her minions next year and there also needs to be a theme song/fanfare to keep the hyper-social attendees focused. I could bring my conch shell to blow perhaps.

Congrats go to lots of our pals who won like: Victoria Potter's Demicouture winning in Fashion and Colleen's Buzz Networker edging out Techvibes.

I also enjoyed the tight race for Best Political blog finishing 1. The Tyee 35% 2. Matthew Good 22% & 3. Jonathon Narvey 18%. The Tyee had a huge night with 3 awards and Beyond Robson got some love for Events.

Even the third place finishes (like Monica's Your Dose of Lunacy, and Terri's The Conveyor Belt) were reason to party as this was all about community and being part of something larger.

Friend of the Raincity Studios' Miss 604 is expanding her online empire with the new Best of 604 Awards. Everyone gets to Vote for Best of 604 to decide the best resources across a variety of categories from best sports blog to fave tech blog.

Here's how Rebecca puts it: "Best of 604 - The people's choice awards for the best sites and blogs in Metro Vancouver - 100% of awards night donations will benefit the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society."

With heaps of our pals and faves nominated, i'll try to go easy on the vote influencing and instead issue a flagrant personal plug by recommending the following for your consideration:

Favourite Company or Business Blog

Raincity Studios (http://raincitystudios.com/blogs-and-pods)

Favourite Photo Site or Blog

Kris Krug (http://staticphotography.com)

Kris is Raincity Studios' company prez and ambassador by day and an ace editorial, fashion, rock n' roll photographer by night - Static is where the remarkable shots in his Flickr photostream get some context and narrative to go along. Actually, he is both prez and photog, all day and night.

Kris is also photo dude for http://theconveyorbelt.com with fashionista Terri Potratz nominated in the Best Style/Fashion Site or Blog.

Favourite Audio/Video Blog or Podcast

Gravelly Beach (http://gravellybeach.wordpress.com)

Choogle On (http://choogleon.com).

This past Saturday was  Media Democracy Day in Vancouver and around Canada.

While I was otherwise indisposed, the Vancouver event at the Public Library looked like a huge success (because of or in spite of the beautiful autumn weather), our man Scales was among the participants on stage on a panel to discuss "The Battle for New Media and Open Communication" along with Micheal Tippet of Now Public and others.

He used his experiences covering Olympic Games in Turin and Beijing as reference points to discussthe changing landscape of news gathering.

Our pal Tris Hussey was among the active audience live twittering the event to provide some excellent stream of collective consciousness reportage in: Journalism in a time of Big Media Domination & The Battle for New Media and Open Communication.

Tris captures snippets of the conversations ranging from landscape change and market woes to non-rights-holders covering the Olympics. Here's a taste:

"You won’t recognize the media landscape in three years" Michael Tippet edit • delete

Scales still "super editor" and "unofficial" China desk editor on NowPublic edit • delete

Streets of Torino, they couldn’t talk about the Olympics, IOC shut them down. Hmm. Guess you have to pay to cover, eh? Became cultural show edit • delete 

Geekfests!

Summer's winding down which means less camping camping, and more indoor camping, on the agenda.

Next up to add to your geek fest calendar are two free-form, inter-disciplinary meetups in Vancouver:

MobileCampVancouver2 at WorkSpace on Saturday, Sept.6th.

BarCampVancouver2008 at locations Granville Island on Saturday/Sunday, Sept. 27th-28th.

Both are participatory events with presentations selected by vox populi at the beginning of the session. Check out the the Rules of Bar Camp to learn what to expect.

MobileCamp Vancouver 2

Alas, MCV2 runs concurrently with Drupal Camp Victoria but there are enough enthusiasts around to make both events a success. MCV2 is sponsored by Mobile Muse - an applied research and developmet project funded by the Canadian government to conduct projects in the emerging mobile space.

Blurb:

MobileCampVancouver is bringing together iPhone junkies, Crackberry addicts, couch surfers, coffee shop hackers, vagabonds and mobile nomads to share the current state and their visions for the future direction of mobility.