B. Mann Consulting

I'm at VinoCamp for the day, a fun wine event I helped organize. This is the first one we've done, and it all sort of came together at the last minute (I think). We're drinking our first set of wines, and listening to our second presentation. There are tech folks in the audience, posting to Twitter (VinoCamp 2008 or vinocamp).

I think there's a good vibe in the room, the weather outside is beautiful, and the UBC Botanical Gardens space is beautifiul.

I'll do some more updates later, and look for pictures on Flickr to add.

Later being the end of the next day :P I'm just in the midst of uploading my Flickr pics, which will be tagged with VinoCamp. Here are some bullet point thoughts still percolating a day and a bit later:

• 10:30am is pretty early in the morning to start drinking wine
• a large portion of folks that were "techie" in some way (50%? not sure...)
• non-techies not quite sure what to make of laptops, iPhones, and interstitial techie comments
• a handful of people Twitter'ing an event gives it a real time feel to the outside world, and a sense of connectedness to the people in the room
• scrumpy is a type of strong British cider; apparently, it's made with raw meat in some recipes (don't ask ...)
• David Sanders talking (and really, demonstrating) about the shape / type of wine glass and how it affects the flavour made a believer out of me and 95% of the rest of the room...I think an event featuring *just* David and his magical set of Riedel glasses would be worth the price of admission
• Bradley Cooper is Bradinator on Twitter, and I was amazed and the amount of back and forth wine chat there is going on around the globe.
• 14 tastings are rather a lot in one day; some how I didn't quite realize how much wine Lori managed to pull off; no, really, I was thinking maybe 8 wines throughout the whole day
• the first time you have an event, you have to "just do it" and hope you can set the tone for follow on events

We'll be gathering together resources from the event (blog posts, pointers on the wiki page, etc. etc.) and putting them in the email. Or at least a link to the wiki to look for all those resources. I'm especially looking forward to feedback from the event. I definitely had fun and would want to do it again, and the tone seemed to be positive ... we'll see what the entire crew had to say.

Yes, I'm getting involved in yet-another-event. I was overjoyed when I heard that Lori Pike had made the jump out of tech and into a great marketing position with Mission Hill. I mumbled something about a WineCamp, a similar-but-different* event that started down in San Francisco / Napa Valley.

Lori took the idea, went off and got approval, and then came back and called me on actually helping organize this thing. A bunch more volunteer organizers were called out, meetings were had, and now, we bring you ... VinoCamp! Here's the blurb:

This is definitely not the wine festival. In a more unstructured form than a standard conference, VinoCampVancouver brings wine, people and technology together in one place, making wine accessible, educational and fun. As a different type of conference, VinoCamp is designed for those interested in technology and wine, and people are expected to take photos of what's happening, and to blog or tweet or message about their experiences.

Join us! Whether you're speaker, sponsor, or a wine-drinker, our aim is to make this day memorable, fun, and interesting. You will learn more about wine and viticulture, meet interesting people, and enjoy yourself in one of Vancouver's loveliest gardens.

It's a full day (approx. 10-4) and is being held on August 16th at UBC Botanical Garden. We're expecting about 125 people. Registration is open now, and tickets are $50 for the full day event (t-shirt, lunch, wine, and food pairings included) please head on over to Eventbrite to register now. I fully expect this to sell out as we push out the word this week, so get your tickets soon.

We're also looking for sponsors and speakers.

Thanks to launch sponsors Redwerks for helping put together the website with their Kommonwealth tool, and to Artisan Wine Company for being the wine sponsor.

And, of course, a tip of the corkscrew in the general direction of my co-organizers: Degan, Tanya, Colleen, Megan, Cyprien and Lauren (yes there are some Northern Voice co-conspirators in that list).

* For the record, the WineCamp one liner description is "an ad-hoc gathering that brings together the best of the old world and the new... wine, non-profits and geeks!" -- connecting non-profits with technologists over wine. A great goal, but we really were interested in reaching out to wine and food enthusiasts and skip technology all together -- aside