Update for the Start of October

Whew! I know things have been a bit quiet here at the website, but there has been a lot going on in terms of planning and organization.

Lots of response to the initial promotions, varying from "That's fantastic" to "How can I help?". What has been particularly interesting are the "People collect bookmarks?" and "I had no idea there could be a convention about bookmarks" responses. I think this demonstrates that the promotional benefit from the convention is its real value. Folks are talking about bookmarks as a hobby!

Presentations are starting to gel and I'll be posting abstracts for the talks as we receive them. Some great talks are in the works, and the variety will be amazing! Talks are being prepared on general collecting, making bookmarks, bookmark history, and bookmark collections.

If you think you might have a topic about bookmarks, please contact us to discuss it. We're happy to give some guidance about presentations. Many being prepared started with the question "what would I talk about at the convention?"

We're also talking with vendors and advertisers, and getting feedback from early stakeholders. We should be posting rate sheets soon.

I'll be updating the website this weekend, and our first newsletter will be delivered in the next week - so if you haven't subscribed to the newsletter, jump on board soon. I'll be announcing the registration for the convention and when you can start signing up.

Take care, and keep spreading the word!

Press Release

We have gone public! The Press Release has been written and delivered to early contacts as well as anyone who has signed up for the mailing list. So spread the word and lets see how big we can make this convention!

You can find a copy of the press release (in Word file format as well as a PDF) at: http://www.bmcvc.com/documents/publicity/

Mailing List Installed

The Bookmark Convention now has an official mailing list with sign up form!

MailChimp is our official mailing list service, and you'll find that they have a rather complete set of messages and verification steps, subscribe and unsubscribe features, and a convenient way for us to send email notifications.

For now, I'm just asking for an email address to subscribe. Once a registration system is in place, then we can get a bit more information to establish registration/membership access.

So, sign up now and let me know how you like the process!

Proposed schedule

I've proposed dates and times for the convention. They are listed at the Schedule page.

20, 21 February 2010 is a weekend that seems to be without a major conflict in all the countries I could check.

Three sessions, each session is 6 hours long, and there is a 3 hour break between the sessions. This covers a 24 hour period with most major regions in the world having 1 session during the day, 1 in the evening, and 1 in the middle of the local night. This means that any presenter should be able to find a slot during their prefered times.

Testing Seminar Tool

Had the first test of the seminar tool we'll be using, DimDim. Three of us played with controls, uploaded presentations, passed the Presenter controlls and ran simple tests. We were all impressed with its power and simplicity. I think this is an excellent match.