Gnomedex is underway!

Bright and early this morning, coffee, taxi zoomed to Bell Harbo(u)r Conference center for the first full day of Gnomedex. Last night was the kick off meet and greet party with good times catching up with folks I met last year - and recollecting what we’ve done with the “stuff” learned last year.

Since last year, I’ve made over a hundred podcasts, blogged using several different platforms (Bryght, Wordpress, Blogger), and began using RSS feeds as my main means to gather and publish information - can’t wait to find out what this next year holds.

Talked about the state of industry with Andre Charland - who I co-presented with at Northern Voice (when i subbed-in for something about blogging your hobbies) where he spoke about his ski culture community site DogLotion (which i believe is in re-make mode with Rain City Studios) - turns out besides being a top-notch recreationalist, he is Captain Ajax of E-Business Applications who just launched a new version of their grid application bound to clean up user interfaces all over.

Also caught up with the exploits of Will Pate who works for Flock - a new browser designed for the social web revolution so to speak. Young brilliant Will is on the tech conference circuit representing to the people at the full list of buzzword-named conferences. He is taking a well needed rest to Prince Edward Island next week which is a place I’d love to visit.

Stopped at the Boundry Bay Brewpub in Bellingham on the ride down for some much-needed refreshment after a hot and slow drive getting out of Vancouver and through the unscenic ‘burb of Surrey .

Lots more Vancouver folks including sharp-as-a-tack IT guru Boris Mann (pic) of Bryght, plus his comrade super photog and world traveler Kris Krug busting out the big lens making everyone look cool, the affable and articulate Darren Barefoot who is a technical writer/public relations guy plus blogs on travel , hockey, tech etc.

Hung out with my counterpart at Rain City Studios, Marketing Champion Megan Cole who is as funny as she is talented. More Rain City folks are around after participating in DrupalCon the past week. Derek Miller, music maker who created the official Gnomedex song is planning to lead a rousing version of Oh Canada tomorrow which I’ll try to record for posterity.

Dave Winer is sitting in front of me and read the Proclomation from the Governor declaring “RSS Days” in the state. Dave and Marc Canter are like the godfathers of the conference and two gents I’ve come to respect the more I learn about the vision and execution they’ve individually brought to the industry.

After the infamous Internet entrepreneur and top-notch self-promoter and conference host Chris Pirillo opened up with his humor and motivation speech and imparting the message that this is “our” conference and everyone here open and encourage to participate and everyone is a VIP so let the ideas flow.

With that in mind, Darren Barefoot opened up the comments from the floor by requesting a TV for World Cup viewing. US Senator John Edwards is the keynote later today but first up is a guy (J. Michael Arrington) talking about Techcrunch and already the controversy about advertising vs not and how monetizing will happen is underway.

The room is abuzz with venture funding, mass hiring, new companies, massive stats and great ideas. I can’t wait to see with PT from Make Magazine (really more of a Japanese-style Mook) has planned (something about open sourced hardware hacks) and happy to hang out with my long-time friend Jay Stewart of Zhonka Broadband who is a font of wisdom on everything from political telecommunication policy to obscure European history to Cisco OS.

I’ll link this post up as the day goes on, but in the meantime, follow along on the simulcast and the pics on Flickr to watch geeks thinking and spending expense accounts ;-).