Northern Voice blogging conference is looking for speakers

Northern Voice is an annual blogging and social media conference that's held near the start of every year in Vancouver. It manages to attract bloggers and Web media people from right across North America, and it's regularly a sellout. The site for the 2009 event went up recently, and they've put up a call for speakers.

While the admission rates have been pretty reasonable in past years, if you've got blogging or social-media skills being a presenter and getting in free is an even better deal. Submissions from potential speakers are being accepted until December 19. I went back in 2006 and was somewhat disappointed by the conference. I found it to be a weird mix of infomercial-type sessions ("use our blogging software and earn money"), and out-of-touch Internet cheerleading like Kurt Cagle's "Blogging and the Future of (the) Media" session, where I rolled my eyes a lot. Then there were sessions that were just a continuation of on-line fights that various bloggers were having over some minor point like how advertising should work or what software is the best.

Feedback from 2007 and 2008 made it sound like the conference had improved, and I'm considering going this time. If you do have something to offer, consider putting yourself forward as a speaker. If you're a novice blogger, then definitely consider going, because there's always a lot of information that new bloggers could use.

Northern Voice will take place at UBC from February 20 to 21, 2009.