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BookCamp Toronto 2010 (#bcto10) Roundup

mb — Mon, 17 May 2010 20:07:49 +0000

The Toronto book community gathered for an informal conference at the iSchool this past Saturday — BookCampTO 2010 has been put to bed. The back channel chatter was captured on Twitter (and yes there was less of it). I have tried to capture the reaction in the blogosphere below. Three quick shout outs before that.

We had approximately 275 people attend this year. Vancouver’s Sean Cranbury was the absentee 276th attendee. He went the distance on twitter annotating, broadcasting and retweeting the days events. Amazing Sean. Thanks for the support.
Kat Meyer was to fly in from Phoenix. Her flight was delayed and then canceled a mere five hours before the opening session. We missed you Kat. Hopefully you got some sleep.
And Sé Reed came in from Long Beach California to participate. It was great to meet you Sé. Thanks so much for attending.

And of course thanks to everyone else — including the participants from Halifax, Vermont, and Vancouver — that made the trip.

BookCamp Toronto 2010 W3 Reactions

James Caldwell’s thorough roundup is at 418qe.com

The first part of Charlotte Ashley’s thoughts are at Inklings. She has now posted part II (read the comments).

Joe Clark’s pre-camp blurb at Fawny.org.

Scott Boms announced the digitization of Marshall McLuhan’s works at scottboms.com

The Bookcamp Flickr group complemented by Ron Grimes.

Promod Sharma talks about the day at Riscario.com

Michael Tamblyn’s Kobo summer wine picks are on his posterous

The Booknet Canada folks talk BCTO on their blog.

Bronwyn Kienapple’s lowdown on bookcampTO at a Certain Bent Appeal

Nichole McGill offers a writer’s perspective at her own site.

More from Bronwyn — she offers suggestions for BookCamp Toronto 2011.

Kathleen from Symtext posted her thoughts.

August Bourré at Vestige.org delivers a great summary of his experience at Bookcamp.

Hurpublishing’s take on Bookcamp. Where were you guys?

Mark Leslie’s Top 10 Quotes From BookCamp Toronto

That is it for now. Email or ping me @mdash and I will add your post to the list.

And don’t forget BookCamp Halifax 2010 is June 5.

“Community is the Design Problem”

mb — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 07:25:37 +0000

On episode 17 of MediaHacks Mitch Joel and crew entertained ideas about what a book is. Joel took the literal position. Hugh McGuire defended a Platonist ideal. I tend to agree with Mitch on this one but the more I think about it, the more I am convinced that it is the wrong question.

On the podcast Mitch cites Jeff Jarvis‘ run-down from last year’s TOC. The book of the future, Jarvis said, is searchable, connected, etc. Dan Tapscott’s co-author, Anthony D. Williams, listed a similar recipe in Wikinomics. The guys at OCAD frame it slightly differently — “readable, searchable, networkable and smart.”

Guess what?

That book exists already.

It is called the internet.

The Sophie project from the Institute for the Future of the Book isn’t much better. It already exists too. Powerpoint.

The reason these ideas are so underwhelming is because they focus on the artifact. But the book itself isn’t the design problem. As Leisa Reichelt recently said at the IDEAconference, “community is the design problem.” Any and all efforts to re-imagine the book for the 21st century should start with authorship then jump to readership. Skip the object.

We need an Institute for the Future of Authorship. Take Foucault and Barthes — slingshot their ideas on authorship into the 21st century and see what comes back. The internet gives a hard bounce.

I would like to host a conference on authorship here in Toronto. Interdisciplinary of course. Get the new media guys like Shirky. Rorty-types. Philosophers. Designers. Authors of course. Creators of all kinds. Maybe even some lawyers.

Anyone with me? This worked the last time.

Stream of BookCamp Toronto #BCTO Related Links

mb — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 23:15:00 +0000

Updates June 13:

Malle Vallik on Listening to Customers

Devon Persing’s Notes from BookCamp

Why Margins Are No Longer Wide Enough for Marginalia from Datachondria

Annick Press On Asking the Right Questions

Life Goes Pop — Again for Kevin McFaul

The Wilfrid Laurier roundup 1 2 3

Mark Medley’s notes from BookCamp at the National Post

Updated June 10:

James Caldwell recaps BookCampTO at 418QE

Meghan MacDonald from BooknetCanada — Reaching Readers: Thoughts from BookCamp TO

Tim Middleton provides his unreview

The Marketing Actuary crunches the numbers

John Maxwell reflects at the Thinkubator

B. Kienapple provides her roundup

More Thoughts from RagDoll

Updated June 9:

BookNetCanada’s Thoughts

Drew Beatty’s Thoughts on the Conference

My Tragic Right Hip

The Library Bazaar

The Torontoist Goes Book Campin

Monique Trottier at BreaktheSpine.com (1) (2)

Technologist Liza Daly reports on her experience in Toronto at threepress.org

Steven W. Beattie recaps the conference for the Quill and Quire

sLab at OCAD

http://www.artefati.ca/

Laurier Press Blog

Mark Blevis has a round-up

Stephanie Troeth at BookOven

John Degen – Like Camping With Books

Hugh McGuire interviewed at CBC’s Spark.ca

The Keep’in Real Book Club

Updated:

Carlos Scolari’s post is in Spanish

Carleton Wilson’s Notebook

Margaret Moore explains why Romance writers are digital-savvy.

Joe Clark at Fawny.org says “I gotta stop going to these things.”

Thoughts and observations from Symtext’s Ian Barker

BookCamp prompts some thoughts on email at Datachondria

The Flickr Set (add yours to the group)

Liza Daly’s ePub Zen Garden — http://epubzengarden.com/

http://stephanietroeth.com/bcto09/

The Identi.ca Notice Stream

The Twitter Stream

Some thoughts from Mitch Joel on Selling and Marketing Books

One Little Cog goes graphic (re)thinking conversation

Indie Book Worm did several posts from BookCamp

John Maxwell’s material that served as the basis of his presentation.

David Burton’s Blog (will prompt you to download silverlight)

Leah Braemel’s Blog

Hopes for BookCampTO (Toronto)

mb — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:24:38 +0000

BookCamp is two days away. In this space there has been radio silence about the unconference since my initial aspirational post back in December — mainly because any and all extra time and attention has been directed towards the BookCampTO wiki — that is to say I haven’t had much extra time at all.

But with the details pretty much in the can, I started thinking yesterday about measuring success. What metrics should be used for an event that by definition is a moving target?

Here are my modest wished-for outcomes for the event:

I hope for rich meaningful & discussion that is positive and constructive
I hope everyone that participates meets at least one new person
I hope that everyone that participates is introduced to one idea or perspective they hadn’t considered before
I hope that industry veterans mingle with the those new and those from outside traditional book publishing
I want to have fun and I want to talk with as many participants as possible — especially afterward over drinks at The Bedford Academy.

I guess the best success metric of all is if participants share their BookCamp experiences with others (please tag your posts, tweets, or photos with #bcto).

BookcampTO: Announcing Book Camp Toronto June 6, 2009

mb — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:44:38 +0000

Last month Jeremy Ettinghausen at PenguinBooksUK put together an unconference called Bookcamp. I was dying to attend. Alas it was in London so I stayed home. The intrepid Hugh McGuire flew to the UK and reported back how brilliant it was to have book industry people, creative types, and technologists converge to discuss the future of the book. When Hugh returned, it became clear we needed to import Jeremy’s idea to North America, hence the creation of Book Camp Toronto — to be held June 6, 2009 at the MaRs Centre. Register to particpate at the BookCampTO wiki.

Special thanks to Mitch Joel for helping get the word out. Erin Balser, Hugh, Mitch, and I are organizing things.

Earlier this week, the demise of the Reed’s Book Expo Canada, prompted a flurry of talk about a community book event. Alexa Clark, of Plethora Press, was very gracious to offer her guidance re: unconferences. Thanks Lex.

Looking forward to seeing people in June. Please pass the word.