Finally online here this afternoon and in the Creativity Panel with a fashion designer, a theme park designers, a comic and a giant spider maker riffing on taking ideas into reality so, ... here since KK is rocking the camera today, i'll compile a few highlights of the day with his snaps as well as other Vidfest-tagged pics on Flickr.

Chris Anderson's Presentation about the Economics of Free

Chris is an economist and busts out the fundamental maxims of the macro-science and applies these universal laws to practical daily micro-economics. He's a fine story teller and quick on his feet and you can tell the well runs deep.

RCS comrade Roland joined the packed house to hear Chris explain how all things (products, services, utilities, factors) which can become digital, will AND all things that a re digital will eventually be free. The trick - dear entrepreneurs - is to find the scarcities created in the realm of abundance and create a biz plan around that. Laden with examples - read the article in Wired and look for the forthcoming book, called Free, which will be sold for $0. I recorded the speech so look for a forthcoming podcast.

In the meantime, see also:

• The Future is Free
• NowPublic @ Vidfest2008: Chris Anderson, Keynote
• Notes From Chris Anderson’s “The Future of Free” Talk
• Robert Shaer's Last Dispatch from VIDFest 2008

VIDFest is Vancouver's International Fest for all things around the new and interactive media space and is produced by New Media BC and Telefilm.

KK is on duty as a poster boy for the event - his hoodie sweatshirt and scruffy face adorning magazine ads throughout Cascadia and the event kicking off next week, so here's a quick guide to get you up to speed.

First, be sure you are subscribed to the VIDFest RSS feed and friend up the VIDFest Flickr photostream.

There are several parts to the May 21-24th event - well really, 11 parts when combined with the two-day Vancouver International Game Summit 2008. Here's the official blurb:

VIDFEST is eleven events over four days, including conferences, an awards gala, an international partnering forum, a pitch fest, and a recruiting fair.

Another event to add to your planner - Social Tech Training is geared towards training social change-minded organizations in using the web to activate, communicate and inspire.

For the second year in a row, Kris Krug is speaking to Federation of Post Secondary Educators at their Annual General Meeting in the resort town of Whistler.

Krug's slot is May 14 at 3:15 and he'll be addressing these educator's interest in how to integrate Web 2.0 into their classrooms and/or into their research. Perhaps he'll post his notes or some snaps from the gig here but in the meantime, it's hard to take a bad photo of Whister.

Here's the blurb from their site:

In this edition of the "Catching up with Krug" report, we get the quick recap on KK's participation at ICE 08 in Toronto, Ontario (note to Americans, Toronto is still not the capitol of Canada).

{Pardon the digression} from American Bacon:

[the Mountie explains that Honey has been taken to the capital]
Boomer: The capital Toronto.
RCMP Officer at Headquarters: No, the capital of Canada is Ottawa.
Boomer: Yeah, right. Do we look that stupid? Ottawa!
Roy Boy: Nice try, Dudley.

Whist there, Kris spoke on a panel - moderated by Eli Singer from Segal Communications - with Amber Macarthur, and Mark Relph, about leveraging the power of social networks. Here's a live blog from the session "Community Watch: Leveraging the Power of Networks" for your interest.