NorthernVoice is a “budget” conference, so you can’t really expect much in terms of swag. They’ve done a good job, though, of getting some really passionate sponsors. So far the best free stuff is a pen from Royal Roads (my wife’s target university), and a very nice water bottle from webnames.ca.

Didn’t do any blogging during the last session, about citizen journalism - was too engrossed in the conversation. It ended with a debate over whether just anyone can call themselves a journalist. The consensus was that since there is no real accreditation that makes you a “journalist”, it’s perfectly reasonable to use the term to describe someone who writes publicly. This is not to disparage “professional journalists” though, just a widening of the definition of the word.

Currently in a session about microformats. Lively discussion of tagging at the moment.