Speakers submissions to Northern Voice 2010 close March 9th

Despite the fact that I have a fairly visible presence in social networking sites (like Twitter), I have considered myself first and foremost a blogger. I write frequently and engage with my readers. Northern Voice is a conference about blogging (although we do discuss issues of social media). Think about it as North by North West. I previously participated in Northern Voice 2008 and 2009 (and submitted 2 proposals to the 2009 conference, both of them declined).

Last year, I also liveblogged half of the conference, and gave a MooseCamp talk on Raising Environmental Awareness Using Social Media. This year, I am going to submit again not one, not two but three proposals. The reason being, I have now the accumulated experience of an increased number of speaking gigs on social media, as well as my day-to-day application of social media and blogging to my teaching, consulting and research.

The submissions close on March 9th, which if you think about it, is not that far away. So, hurry up and submit a proposal. Northern Voice 2010 will take place on the weekend of May 7th/8th. I do plan to attend even if none of my submissions get accepted.

So what do I plan to submit a proposal on? My friend Darren Barefoot (who is on the committee and will also be weeding out the proposals) mentioned a list of the topics he’d like to see discussed. I am, as I usually do, going to refrain from actually touching those subjects (I love being a contrarian). There are other topics that I’m interested in, and that despite the fact that I don’t actually work on some of those fields, I’d be interested in convening a panel about:

- Social media and crime prevention/solution. A little while ago, I wrote about the potential misuse of social media, and the legal implications of citizen vigilantes. Are we becoming criminals by trying to stop criminals? This, to me, is a super crucial and interesting topic.

- Diversity in social media, blogging, etc. – beyond the usual suspects. This is another topic that I’ve touched on here. Is race/gender/sexual orientation still relevant when choosing speakers/defining who is influential in the social media sphere?

- Public policy and social media – beyond the rhetoric of public participation. This, by and large, is my first and foremost choice for topic where I can/want to speak. I was really appalled at the mis-use of social media by politicians around the British Columbia provincial election (full disclosure, I also edited a non-partisan, pluralist website to showcase ALL politicians’ platforms).

I teach public policy. I have conducted research on public policy for over a decade. I use social media. You’d think that I would have a thing or two to recommend to my dear bureaucrats and politicians on how they should be using social media. And it’d be free! (well, whatever you charge for entry to Northern Voice).

- Enhancing political science education using social media. This is, in no way, my field of expertise. But given that I’m using Twitter, Facebook, wikis and blogs to teach The Comparative Politics of Public Policy and Global Environmental Politics, I would want to share my experiences. Discuss issues of privacy, how easily my students assimilated the use of wikis, problems they encountered, the use of Twitter for fast conversation/data sharing.

You might be puzzled as to why I don’t plan to submit a talk on Mental Health Camp or any of the other social media and non-profits I’ve supported. I actually think that for me, Northern Voice will be more about taking the dialogue further on other topics. We will hold a full-fledged Mental Health Camp a couple of months after Northern Voice.

And this year, even if none of my submissions get accepted, I will still liveblog a few sessions and submit a MooseCamp talk. Why? Because I’m part of the community, that’s why. And I’m proud of it.

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Related posts:

1. Liveblogging @ChrisMessina at #nv10 Northern Voice Keynote Saturday
2. Liveblogging Northern Voice 2009 – I’m EXHAUSTED!
3. Northern Voice 2009 is upon us, and I’m going
4. Northern Voice 2009 – The call for papers is out!
5. Northern Voice and Vancouver Blogger Meetup