Beautiful colours of Darling Harbour, Sydney as the rain swept across the city throughout the day.

---

It’s the People, Stupid | Deb Schultz

“Moo [.com] put me front and centre.” “Customer service is the new marketing.”

Deb talked about being a good host at a party is the mindset to making a great web experience. That greeting, talking, facilitating new relationships with users and participants was what would keep people connected with a site/brand/experience. She urged everyone to:

• think like a social animal
• observe
• join in community conversations and activities
• help users – new and experienced, both
• to stand for something
• put love in because we’ll get love out
• be consistently attentive – avoid grand gestures
• experiment
• listen

Suggested a site that makes everyone smarter – by their knowledge and connections was a great thing. Let users learn about you, them them learn about themselves, let them meet others.

Above all, she wants us all to respect our users’ time.

---

Pervasive Computing | Rob Manson

“[I move] in and out of clouds of connectivity.”

Rob feels that space is collapsing. He walked us through his thoughts around the idea of how we experience technology now, compared to 50 years ago. He quoted “it takes 20 years to become an overnight success”.

He talked about the fathers of information architecture, and about virtual reality. From the 60s and early examples of augmented reality to today’s dabblings with targets and Flash (for instance). How, by using programs on our mobile devices, we can view the world with a layer of information augmented over the top to enrich our informational experience.

He talked about the future – how it’s already moving towards having that enriched experience leave a hand held device and become part of us – first an example of eyewear, followed by the (cringing) image of circuitry on a human’s eyeball.

---

Data Driven Design | Luke Stevens

“Learnings is not a real word.”

Use Google Analytics and Google’s Web Optimisation toolkits for measuring and testing questions of user preference, rather than taking guesses at what people prefer.

Presentation at Web Directions South 2009, Sydney Convention Centre, October 9 2.40pm.

---

15 Years In, Closing Keynote | Dan Hill