Events Archive

London WSG ‘Findability’ meeting

While I gather my thoughts on @media, a quick mention of the London WSG meeting on Wednesday night, which was on the topic of Findability.

There were three presentations; the first, by Cyril Doussin, introduced the subject and explained the core concepts behind it; the ways in which users find your content (or product) and how you can make it easier for them.

Next, Stuart Colville showed practical ways to make the content on your site more findable, from design through to mark-up, style and behaviour. He raised the interesting point that tagging is better than categorising, as categories tend to be fixed whereas content changes over time as information evolves; time for me to start using WordPress’ tagging function.

Finally, Steve Marshall showed off Yahoo!’s latest project, Fire Eagle (currently invitation only; I was handed one at @media today), which is a service that lets you update your physical location across multiple sites and services. It’s pretty impressive in theory, but the fact that I can only currently update from the desktop means I am limited to home or work, mostly.

The whole evening was nicely balanced to appeal to a broad range of skills and knowledge, and had the right mix of theory, practice, and showing off. I’m aiming to get more involved in organising future events, and I hope to be part of more quality events like this one.


London Web Week flying update

I intended to write about the WSG meeting and the first day of @media, but drinking socialising networking has occupied my spare time. Still, I got to hear some salacious gossip about well-known characters in the web community, so it was worth it for that alone.

Some interesting stuff about HTML 5 to discuss shortly.


The Microformats vEvent that wasn’t

Having missed the opening party, my introduction to London Web Week was last night’s Microformats vEvent. Unfortunately it wasn’t a good introduction, for two reasons;

First (and foremost), it wasn’t really about Microformats. The first speaker talked about RDFa and GRDDL, the second about RDFa and FOAF.

Second, the presumption was that we had an extremely high level of technical knowledge; a presumption that wasn’t true, in my case at least. I’m fairly new to Microformats but I have a pretty good idea of what they’re about; both talks went over my head anyway. And my poor wife, who’s learning about them for the first time, had no idea what was going on.

The description of the event said:

We hope that no matter your experience level, you’ll find the evening informative, enjoyable and inspiring.

I didn’t. In fact, it may well have been counter-productive for me; it took a subject I’m excited about, and made it sound complicated and boring.

I’m sure that some people would have got a lot out of it – the man next to me who’s studying for his pHD in artificial intelligence certainly seemed to enjoy it – but I think the organisers should have been more honest about the technical knowledge required, and saved some attendees a bit of time.

I did get a book for asking a question, however, so it wasn’t a total loss.


London Web Week

GTA IV has been occupying my spare time recently, with extra-curricular web work taking a back seat (pun intended). But next week should put paid to that, as London Web Week takes place – and I’ll be attending a lot of it.

So far I’ve reserved places at the opening party, the Microformats and Findability events, and the two-day @Media conference; I may well make the closing party on Sunday as well. I wanted to attend Bar Camp but tickets went faster than hot cakes and I missed my chance.

Other than @Media, which I enjoyed greatly last year and no doubt will do so again, I’m really looking forward to the Microformats event. I’ve recently started implementing hAtom and hCalendar on sites I’ve been producing and am finding it hugely interesting.

The WSG’s Findability event I’m anticipating less, but then I thought the same about last year’s Microformats talk and regretted not attending, so this time I don’t want to make a similar mistake.

I’ve no doubt this will provide me with plenty to write about in the coming weeks and months, and it’s exciting to have so much happening on your doorstep. If you’re planning to attend and want to say hello, let me know; it’ll be nice to put a face to a name.


What I saw at FoWD 2008

As promised, slightly more detailed notes on the sessions at FoWD (further links to presentations to follow). In chronological order:

Finding Inspiration for Design (Patrick McNeil)

I missed the beginning of this, but it seemed to be pretty sage, if not rather commonsense, advice (don’t just use websites for web design inspiration), as well as some notes on current trends and tips on future ones; soft colours, more use of horizontal space, more video.

User Experience vs Brand Experience (Steve Pearce and Andy Clarke)

Set up as a confrontation, but in fact both speakers were at pains to point out that both should be thought of together. Andy Clarke adds: don’t be afraid to fail, we learn from our mistakes.

Read the full article


What I saw at @media 2007

So @media 2007 is over and, after a little breather, here’s a short breakdown of what I saw, in chronological order, along with links to presentations where possible.

There were lots of great, inspiring ideas, which should spin out into a few more posts in the near future.

Read the full article


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Aside

I’ve updated my Speaking page to include more conferences, more videos, and a little on my speaking requirements and preferences. I’m planning to cut down on the number of talks I give in 2014 (twelve is too many), but am always open to interesting offers and opportunities, so please get in touch if you’re organising an event.

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