Safe and Sound
September 2010
It seems that I mainly Blog (as opposed to write 'articles') after attending some kind of nerd based event, but here I am again, just after an event typing away...
This time it's dConstruct, and I have to say it was a blast - very different from other events (FOWA, SXSW and smaller events like DDD, WebDD, Barcamps and user groups like NxtGen).
Like Jasper I'd have to say that the thing that makes dConstruct a great conference to attend is its almost brazen affront to technique style takeaways and it's ability to either shun, or at least dramatically downplay, any feelings of being sold to or comercialised. Techniques are rightly consigned to the realm of the workshop. The difficulty then, as an attendee, is to justify attendance. Can you quantify the shot of enthusiasm and inspiration as easily as going on a training course?
I think so. Attempting to provide workshop style content is a huge balancing act between the potential knowledge bases of the large audience. And putting up sponsors to speak is an immediate turn off. But planting ideas, making you think, that is what makes you want to get back onto your laptop and start working away.
Talks
| dConstruct 2010: Talks / Boiled down | |
|---|---|
| Marty Neumeier | Products fall into four broard categories: "good and different", "not good but different", "good but not different" and "neither good or different" |
| The Designful Company | |
| Brendan Dawes | 1. Collect, 2. Think, 3. Remove all that isn't necessary |
| Boil, Simmer, Reduce | |
| David McCandless | Visualise data to see what you couldn't before |
| Information Is Beautiful | |
| Samantha Warren | The time for web typography is now |
| The Power & Beauty of Typography | |
| John Gruber | Success comes from a single mindedness but that single mind can lower the collective talent if the auteur has a lesser taste than the team |
| The Auteur Theory of Design | |
| Hannah Donovan | The power of collaboration through improvisation (which isn't just random ad hoc activity it's subject to structure, timing and harmonious roles). |
| Jam Session: What Improvisation Can Teach Us About Design | |
| James Bridle | The journey from one historical fact to another is as much, if not more, intriguing than facts alone |
| The Value Of Ruins | |
| Tom Coates | Interconnectedness enabled massively by the proliferance of APIs are as revolutionary as the roads of the Persian Empire (2secs I'm just off to make a mash up) |
| Everything The Network Touches | |
| Merlin Mann | It's good to be a nerd but don't be complacent, keep looking for the next thing to nerd out about (before you're obsolete) |
| Kerning, Orgasms & Those Goddamned Japanese Toothpicks | |
I've boiled the conference down to a single sentence per talk. At this point the interesting thing to me is that some of the remainder might be labelled 'obvious', but to me it's down to the quality of an engaging speaker that you come away with a clear message.
This also reminds me of an article by Max Pool that I read not too long ago:
Just because you can grasp the answer does not mean you have the knowledge, wisdom, experience, or work ethic to come to that answer http://www.codesqueeze.com/intellects-dont-appreciate-intelligence/
Microsoft UK Tech Days 2010
April 2010
Continuing the theme of keeping myself busy with geek events! I also recently attended the Microsoft UK Tech Days Visual Studio and .NET 4 talks.
To be fair a lot of the content was similar to what I had already heard at ddd8. So we're talking Optional Parameters, Named Arguments, Generic Variance and Dynamic Typing for .NET 4 plus multi-monitor support, changes to code highlighting and javascript intellisense and a WPF interface for Visual Studio... I particularly liked the 'code only' profile for VS that disables some unnecessary services and hides all windows/toolbars except for the editor and solution explorer.
In addition to this the parallelisation features of .net were discussed (AsParallel(), PLINQ) - something that's always intriguing and worth trying out. And there were niceities too for asp.net. Caching being pushed into a provider model, controllable client IDs and a far more slimline web.config are all a part of this.
Overall
Barcamp Bournemouth 2
April 2010
Having been to a few of the 'big' conferences and just returned from SXSW it was quite refreshing to attend a more small scale, local affair. With other barcamp's often being either far away or both far away and starting too soon after work BarCamp Bournemouth made it easy, running over a weekend and being so close!
I must of course say congratulations to the organisers for putting in the effort to provide a free social/conference for up to 100 attendees. No small feat, including organising the venue plus sponsorship for two free meals.
In terms of comparison I would suggest that the small scale nature of the event made it much more of a 'geek social' than a free conference. Which made it a heck of a lot more fun but perhaps less about learning.
I made it to a number of talks including a run through of scala (with some very similar features to .net), a designers do better rant from Rich Quick, partook in a .NET MVC discussion, a number of discussions surrounding the Digital Economy Bill, and an intro to British Sign Language (from Lalita D'Cruze). And yes, I can now sign my name :-)
Off the back of this I looked into what other smallscale events are run in my area:
So will show up to those in due course. I also learnt to play Polarity and Werewolf!
SXSW - In Reflection
March 2010
Having seen (or at least made notes on) 17 talks at last year's 'South By', coupled with the fact that this year pretty much the entire Headscape team were heading out to Austin I felt sure that my 'talk total' would be much lower. However I somehow managed to make it out to 21 different talks, panels and/or podcast recordings!
Unfortunately I didn't find the time to write up these notes during the conference. But I will do so over the coming days (and backdate them within this blog).
For me, this year had quite a different feel to it. Knowing 11 rather than just 3 people from the outset leant itself to more of a family holiday feel than a networking event...
The Talks
In terms of the talks there seemed to be a theme of design and persuasion with less technical technique oriented items on the schedule. However as I've said before technique 'takeaways' are few and far between at large scale conferences. In fact it is perhaps more beneficial to dip into some sessions that won't necessarily have a direct impact on your role. Instead they will enrich it with insight into some other aspect of web design/development work. This is useful particularly within small agencies where roles are often blurred. For me this included talks on psychology, design and interfaces.
Looking back at last year I spent a lot of time checking out Flash and iPhone based talks which this year seem to have been replaced by Javascript/HTML5, or geo/location based talks. To me this matches the movemement in the industry away from flash (due to devices like the iPhone driving it out) and away from 'device features' to 'applications that can be based on device features' e.g. "OK, your device has access to GPS, what can I now actually make with that".
IE
It's interesting to note that last year I was listening to Microsoft Rep's discussing IE8's intended CSS capabilities and during this years SXSW IE9 was being announced/discussed at Microsoft MIX. With talk of SVG, CSS3 and GPU powered graphics. They really seem to be ramping up their versions now in competition with Mozilla, Apple, Google and Opera (after their 5 year IE6/7 gap), with some promising stuff coming out of redmond.
Overall SXSW was definitely worth reattending. I've returned once again enthused about the industry and getting stuck into some interesting projects, although it would be interesting to take some time to attend more workshop based events in the UK in the future.
Boagworld 200th
February 2010
It was my pleasure to take part in the 200th Boagworld (bw200) yesterday. A marathon session that started with Bob, Paul and I waiting outside the locked barn keyless and cold until Dave, Stanton and Ryan came to the rescue...
In my mind the day was like a free one day, online conference with a brilliant lineup all sharing their time for free. There wasn't too rigid a schedule with guests in and out all the time either via skype or in person. However there was a general plan of 30minute sessions (expertly co-ordinated and organised by Ryan Taylor).
Each session was recorded and as far as I'm aware will be released by Marcus and Paul over the coming weeks.
Highlights for me included a relaxed, and seemingly extremely well read (if his bookshelf was anything to go by) Andy Clarke getting into a heated debate with Paul regarding browser support / progressive enhancement and some excellent food for thought from Drew Mclellan and Rachel Andrew in regard to e-commerce projects.
The only real lowlight was some rather unnecessary behaviour in the backchannel. Other than that it's a shame each guest was only on for 30minutues as there was some excellent content that could have taken up entire shows in their own right.
Thanks to the rotating host system I got to co-host a chat with Drew and Rachel on The Joel Test and to speak with Christian Heilmann about Yahoo's YQL.
The Joel test is an interesting one that allows teams to take a step back and guage how effectively they are operating. Covering questions on Source Control, bug tracking, scheduling and working conditions.
One of the tests that we didn't have time for was 'Do new candidates write code during their interview?' which for me is something that I've been wrestling with at Headscape (where we do ask for code to be created as part of the application process). Shortly I will be posting an article covering my thoughts on the matter (as encouraged by Emily).
Unfortunately I think there was a misunderstanding regarding the length of Christians session (being only half an hour instead of an hour) however I think it was one of the best sessions for takeaway action. The YQL demos that Christian had prepared showed us just how easily web apps and mashups can be created by standing on the shoulders of Yahoo. Allowing us to get down to the real functionally of our apps rather than worrying about the wiring of individual pieces across differing API boundaries. I urge you to take a look at the YQL Demos that Christian prepared.
All in all, a great day. Thanks to everyone involved (especially Cath for providing food for us all!
Some related bits and bobs
- A Flickr set of the show
- Some more photos from Stanton
- GooHooBi - An example of YQL usage to aggregate multiple search engines
- Christians YQL demo writeup
P.S. I'm still not sure Paul noticed the hijack of his about page throughout the day... did you?
