September Kicked Off Fall With An Action Packed Schedule
Monday, October 6th, 2008
Posted by Jenn Lowther
Now that we are a week into October, we’ve finally been able to catch our breath from the hectic schedule that September brought. Nothing lets you know that summer has concluded by a month’s worth of back to back events!
September saw the crew at Invoke jumping on planes to warm and rain free locales Las Vegas and San Fransisco and to water taxi’s to Vancouver’s own Granville Island for conferences. I’ve chosen a few of my favorite events to recap. Make sure you check out the photo gallery at the end of this post.
Invoke brought the fall in with a bang with our third annual Mustachio Party. Mustachio is an annual event that Invoke holds for friends, family, and Vancouver Peeps where the men find a reason to not shave for a month in order to rock the best mustache of the evening.
This years Macho Mustachio award went to Invoke’s very own Paul Donnelly. Donnelly went above and beyond the Mustachio requirements by shaving part of his head bald. Words will do this no justice, behold the awesomeness that is Mustachio.
We had an amazing turn out this year and saw over 200 people join us at the Invoke headquarters to celebrate the end of summer and bring in the fall. If you couldn’t make it this year, make sure you keep your ears open for the announcement of next years festivities.
Launch Party 5, as the name implies, was the 5th Vancouver Launch party. It was held almost to the day 1 year after the first one. I’ve been lucky to be able to attend each of the 5 events and Maura really outdid herself this time. An amazing time was had by all in attendance.
It is amazing to see how much the Vancouver Tech community has evolved and expanded in such a short period of time. Through the Launch Party series, we’ve been able to get to know the community better, cement old relationships, and meet a bunch of cool people working on some great projects.
We were event treated to a quick talk by Vancouver Mayoral candidate Gregor Robertson - I believe that all of the other candidates were invited to speak to the Vancouver Tech community, but he was the only one in attendance. We were also treated to an impromptu live opera performance from Sheila that was absolutely stunning. It reminded me about how I do need to get to the Opera more often.
Photo Credit: Jordan Behan
Photo Credit: Raul P
The day after launch party, saw some of the Invoke team members heading down to Las Vegas to host events and represent our client tagga.
Photo Credit: Ianiv & Arieanna Schweber
At the conference, we organized taggamob’s to help generate awareness for tagga. The taggamob’s were promoted through a tagga sms rss feed and through twitter with huge success. The word of the taggamob’s spread quickly and all 6 were highly attended and successful. People were having a blast grabbing one of the red swag envelopes to see if they’d one.
Grace, Ryan, Nadia, and myself had a great time meeting new people and helping garner awareness from a key demographic for our client. The conference organizers were a dream to work with and made helping organize the events for tagga a much easier process. I have to say, that I would love to go to Blogworld again as it was a great event attended by awesome people.
Photo Credit: Rebecca Bollwitt
Photo Credit: Ianiv & Arieanna Schweber
Photo Credit: John Gaudio
I’d like to give a quick shout out to a few Vancouver peeps who helped us to spread the word of the taggamob’s. Thanks to Tris Hussey, Ianiv & Arieanna Schweber, Kris Krug, Collen Coplick, and Rebecca Bollwitt, for the fun times and support!
National New Media Day
National New Media Day was marked with a series of events across Canada to celebrate the New Media industry. Invoke made it to 2 events that day.
Nadia and I started the day’s festivities with an impromtu tweetup at Salt. We were joined by Rebecca Bollwitt, Raul P, Kris Krug, Anthony Nicalo, and Tris Hussey (sorry if I’ve left anyone out:). We were treated to an amazing lunch courtesy of Anthony from Farm Stead Wines.
Photo Credit: Raul P
Photo Credit: Tris Hussey
After work, about half of the office headed down to the Radical Office for New Media BC’s National New Media Day (I know try saying that fast 3 times in a row). Earlier in the day, they held their Annual General Meeting and elected their board of directors for the year. The event was a chance to meet people involved in New Media that we don’t regularly see at the Vancouver Tech events. It was great meeting some new people and running into familiar faces that I’d not seen since VidFest.
This was the first barcamp that Invoke has attended and I have to say that we’ve been missing out these past couple of years. Invoke had a great crew in attendance with Nadia, Grace, and I all in attendance. Barcamp “is an ad-hoc un-conference born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees.”
On the Friday night, we all gathered at WorkSpace, where we were supplied with ample amounts of beer, wine, and cheese and given a chance to meet up with everyone and chat. The main event took place on Granville Island on the Saturday.
Photo Credit: Tris Hussey
The day started off with what would be best described as a scheduling scrum. The main sessions - like wordcamp and photocamp - were pre-scheduled, but beyond that, the days events were scheduled on the fly (which is why it is an un-conference). Anyone who wanted to, was given the chance to make a 30 second pitch about the topic on which they would like to host. From this, the day’s schedule was created and we were all let loose to venture off to the sessions that we wanted to attend across the 3 venues.
My favorite topics of the day were Marketers for Cause - hosted by Jordan Behan and Joe Solomon, WordCamp - hosted by Duane Storey and Rebecca Bollwitt, and PhotoCamp - hosted by an array of highly knowledgeable photograhers. I found that the majority of the sessions were a bit too technical for me, but the day was an outstanding success. Thanks to all of the organizers who made the day possible!!
Photo Credit: Jordan Behan
Photo Credit: Ianiv & Arieanna Schweber
I know that this one technically fell into October, but it’s was pretty close to September and seemed to seamlessly integrate into our hectic schedules.
Ryan, Dave, Nadia, and Dario hopped onto a plane and getted down to San Fransisco for a few days. They are still catching up from the trip and I’ve not heard a ton of details as of yet, but that an amazing time was had by all and that they met some awesome people. Dario will be posting shortly about their experiences, so make sure you keep your eyes open for the recap!
October 6th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
September was busy but it was SO great to catch up with you!
October 7th, 2008 at 2:37 am
Wow, sure looked like a hectic but fun month! I enjoy reading stuff like this, makes me look forward to moving to Vancouver even more (will be arriving Spring 2009!).
October 7th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Hey thanks for the mention, and for taking part in Marketers for a Cause. It was quick, but fun and we did make a difference in a very short time. w00t!
And I assume we’ll be seeing you on the red carpet for Launch Party 6…November 20 I think!
October 7th, 2008 at 10:12 am
@raul It’s always great catching up with you. It was great seeing you at the Rain City Studio’s event last night!
@Bojimha It was hectic, but it was a blast. Vancouver is awesome, see you in the spring
@Jordan Of course you’ll be seeing me on the red carpet for Launch Party 6 - you guys always throw a great event! The marketers for a cause was awesome. We should try and do something like that at more of these events so we can effect more change.