Update: The Vancouver Park Board has voted unanimously for a 1,900 square foot addition to the Brockton Totem Pole Interpretive Centre. [News1130]

It’s one of the first stops all the tour buses make as they cruise around our city’s beloved Stanley Park and recently there’s been a proposal to expand the totem pole visitor centre to accommodate all of its visitors.

“The argument is we need to provide a washroom, bigger washroom, for the tour buses and the tourists that come through there because it can get congested at the busiest times. So, it’s a big project. They also want to expand the gift shop by about 1,400 square feet.” [News1130]

“The totem pole display area at Brockton Point is the most visited tourist attraction in all of British Columbia and it has an interesting history,” and contrary to popular belief, they were not native to the park. They were purchased and placed by the parks board over the last century [VPB].

Photo credit: David Drucker on Flickr

If you’ve been a reader of mine for a while, you’ll know I’m never really a fan of more paving, building, and demolishing nature for the sake of “tourism” in the park, and this is no exception.

I love the totem poles in the park, however if you would like to learn more about the history, culture and traditions behind them, I also recommend the Museum of Anthropology at UBC or the Royal BC Museum in Victoria.

I believe Stanley Park should be enjoyed as a park in all its natural beauty. I like that it’s a city park with amenities but when they start ripping up the entire reason we were drawn to the spot in the first place, it seems a bit silly.

Luckily there are some Parks Board members like Spencer Herbert who feel the same way: “My main concern is green space in the park,” Herbert told the Straight. “Stanley Park isn’t expanding but buildings in the park are.”

Running through the park this morning we saw tents and makeshift campsites all over the place. It sure would be nice to find homes for these people before we build another washroom with handsfree faucets for the next busload of tourists.

There’s just one day to go in the Benji, Casey, Pete and Bella campaign for Paws for a Cause. For months now Keira has been fundraising for this very worthy organization and Matt (who helped Duane and I with the Blogathon) also backed the fundraising effort with updates on his website. Continue reading this post ⟩⟩

Read all of my IMC posts and view my Flickr photos

The last two days at the Internet Marketing Conference have been great. I learned that companies are using their websites and what most of their goals might be, that many marketers do not yet know the value of social media and SEO (or they do, they just don’t know how to implement it), and that the staff at the Coast Plaza on Denman are extremely nice and accommodating.

I really enjoyed the panelists and workshops today, as well as yesterday’s speakers. They all seemed to have that ideal blend of “corporate suit business talker” mixed with “having an actual grasp on the value of the internet and social media.” Coming from the blogging, podcasting, and social media consulting realm myself it was definitely an education for me as well – just being able to live on the other side of the corporate pond for the past two days. Continue reading this post ⟩⟩

Continuing my live blog coverage of the International Internet Marketing Association’s conference, the IMC, we’re now onto tool demos.

First up is the SEO Browser, developed by two Calgary companies, which helps you optimize your website for search engines. Jeff Nelson of Anduro is presenting. Simply go to SEO Browser, enter the URL of a page, and you’ll see the search engine results.

Jeff first enters a site and the SEO Browser hardly picks up a thing. The reason being, the sample website is mostly flash and images – which is NOT good for search engine optimization. [Editor’s note: Yes, you need text! If I see one more image with text in it on a site that’s trying to be optimized I’ll go nuts – that, and it looks really bad.] Continue reading this post ⟩⟩

I walked to the conference this morning, meandering through the quiet West End streets, dodging bicycles and being dusted with the scent of fabric softener from the laundry vents of the walk-ups.

The Coast Plaza on Denman is rustling this morning; the scent of bacon sizzling at Brasserie Bistro is making its way to my nostrils as I setup camp in the Denman Room for day two of the IMC.

There are three tracks today with panels, lightning talks, and product demos so things may get a little scrambled. We’re just starting the “Speed Networking” and at 9:00am we can choose to attend one of the following: Track 1 Panel – Writing for the Web, Track 2 Panel – Conversion Optimization, Track 3 Panel – Online Advertising.

I’m interested in the “writing for the web” from a business and marketing perspective so I’ll check that one out to start.

Panel members: Crawford Kilian, author of “Writing for the Web 3.0”, Elizabeth Southall of Powerhouse Copy, Jim DeLaHunt of Jim DeLaHunt & Associates, Tom McNamara of McNamara Communications, and Monique Trottier of Boxcar Marketing. Continue reading this post ⟩⟩