Conferences such as Northern Voice always have more going on than what happens behind the podium. You see ego and the kindness, deceptiveness and sincerity.
Being young and "artsy" in appearance works out well in many ways. People such as venture capitalists don't expect much from you, so you get to avoid the elevator pitches, and other staples of the professional networker scene.
CBC Radio 3, No Longer?
During a talk, a young, unassuming man noticed my CBC Radio 3 zip-up and made a friendly comment. I was immediately at ease with this straight-forward fellow. I clarified that I did not work for the influential multimedia magazine, that I had recieved the swag from Loc Dao in a talk Rob and I attended some weeks earlier.
Ivar Vaspara, let us know that much of the Radio 3 staff had received their walking papers just recently. I don't know the story in depth, beyond the press release, so do clarify me if you hear any different. No intention to muck-rake here.
I handed Ivar our studio card, telling him about Rob's earlier post about the Radio 3.
When the talk concluded, Ivar handed us his card. Much to my surprise, he himself works for the CBC at ZED, their self-described "open source radio" show. It turns out that he is a Java Developer for the show (and his job is not in jeopardy).
It seems that Zed's web component has actually gone open source after three years of fighting. Ivar was very eager and energetic about his work, just the spirit the crown corporation wants to capture with shows like Zed.
Help keep people like Ivar in employment by supporting ZED. We'll have to wait and see about the new CBC Radio 3 when it relaunches on March 04, 2005.