First up was to finally meet Mike Riversdale. I’ve been dipping into his blog for years now, and I recognised him as soon as I saw him outside the Town Hall. I introduced myself and he shook my hand saying I am the reason he and Llew blog – which is quite a hefty thing to hear on a hungover Friday morning – but it became easier to bear once he explained when, years ago, they were trolling around the internets and they came across thejamjar.com and they said to each other “Hell, we could do that!” and they were right and so it’s my fault they saw how easy it was to blog!

With coffee in hand, another good front seat Day Two began.

Eric Ries was the first person of the day to give entrepreneurs tips, ideas and information about start-ups. He started his talk with “I do not want, nor do I require your undivided attention. That is what the internet is for.” He talked about his previous experience with start-ups – and how the one that was done ‘right’ (“Like the Cylons, this company had a ‘plan’.”) failed, and the one that where they did everything wrong, worked. He urged people to be flexible and to reduce time between iterations. To be able to change direction but stay grounded in what is learned along the way.

I attended Daniel Burka’s workshop earlier in the week. He preached the “listen and iterate” and “take chances and release often” message during his time on the Town Hall stage. He wanted us to make small improvements and to not be afraid to prune content and funtionality to create a lean, realigned design. He also said to build with the expectation of change.

Amy Hoy is a funny woman. Her talk was bound for success as she had incorporated the essential elements of Magnum PI and octopi into her presentation. She wanted us to remember that our work/products could be seen as improving someone’s day “We are affecting the quality of the day for people using our software.” She also said to get on with it “Lions don’t wait for an RFP from a gazelle.” and we need to be bold, we need to be majestic.

Everyone up to this point wanted to share information. Mike Davidson did too, but he didn’t want any of us to share it outside the Hall. He asked that we not Twitter or Blog about his presentation. It was about entrepreneurs etc too – and I don’t believe there was anything ground-breaking in his talk, but I will respect his wishes and a) not blog about it and b) assure you you didn’t miss much.

Bek Hodgson was late to Webstock – Lachlan took her spot the day before, and she arrived in time to take his today. Her presentation was quite short, which left loads of room for questions from the audience. She pulled from her experience in user participation on such sites as etsy and blurb.

Kevin Rose is an internet rock star. He brought a list of 10 Tips For New Web Entrepreneurs, and I managed to grab 9 of them:

1. Go build it! another call to arms to just get the hell on with it. Don’t quite your day job, but start passionately building your product in the after and between hours.
2. Build and release often.
3. Hire your boss. Hire people who compliment your skill set – who have strengths to your weaknesses and who are smarter than you.
4. Raise money.
5. Go cheap.
6. Connect with your community. He suggested when there is no money, not to pay to attend conferences, but show up at all the free after-parties to meet people.
7. Hack the press.
8. Find good advisors.
9. It’s okay if not everyone listens. (not sure if this was No.9 but it’s pretty good advice)
10. Analyse your traffic.

The second speaker from a workshop I’d done earlier in the week: Adam Greenfield got everyone thinking – so much so that hardly anyone left the Hall for afternoon tea but preferred to continue the discussion around networked urbanism and humanisation of technology. This man is insanely intelligent, and has a Mariana Trench of thought. He’s funny too – in that quiet, understated, smart-kinda way. He talked a little of movies such as Minority Report “You know that movie? the one where Tom Cruise plays a heterosexual police officer..” He also reminded us that “It’s not to make data public, it is that the public make the data..” which makes it ours? Technology is bleeding into RL – the city has become searchable.

Then the long <a href=”http://www.webstock.org.nz/10/speakers/veen.php” target=”_blank”>Jeffrey Veen</a> took us on a journey from ice-making to the internet. Telling stories from the past, who succeeded who failed and how this relates to us in the business of now.

I’m so pleased that good conferences end with people who reach into the future and get our thinking juices topped up. Bruce Sterling has done it before at Webstock, and this year we had the pleasure of Mike Pesce and the future as he sees it. While some futurists talk about grand things, Mike thinks about the small ways technology will revolutionise our lives. Our access to information will come from tiny points, but with great depth of data. He says that unless everything is connected, everything is useless. He gave examples that included buying a pound of ground beef in a supermarket and scanning the bar code with our smart-device-of-choice to learn not only what is in the ground beef, but where the animal was farmed, what it was fed on, what anti-biotics it was injected with, where and how it was butchered – information that we use to make our purchasing decisions. He talked about books – how they want to be digitised because they’ve always been a message in code. He was incredibly interesting, and left me (and I’m sure many others) thinking about the future and seeing things in wider perspectives.

Mike Brown opened this much anticipated conference saying “Webstock is made with love.”  and that we all fall in love with things made with love. Webstock is made with love, and is loved: and it shows.

Scott Thomas (@simplescott) was up first. He was Design Director for the Obama Presidential campaign and walked us through some of the strategies and outcomes. He said they established a consistency and balance to exemplify stability and experience through design. He learned that by letting control go, so much more was possible – a message that would be repeated again and again through out this conference – that it’s about the people, for the people, of the people.

Brian Fling rambled his way through his slot. There was quite a bit of disappointment on the Twitter back-channel about the apparent lack of focus of his talk. Personally, I enjoyed it – I thought he was interesting and spoke well.

Lisa Herrod was up next: she spoke passionately about accessibility and how we need to stop making excuses not to do it. She has worked within the deaf community in the past so has a personal touch-paper to her subject. She urged us to develop more insightful personas for testing our online projects – to include people with more challenges, to include characteristics of all peoples and to ensure access to information for everyone regardless of how they access it.

Lisa was followed by her husband, Lachlan Hardy. His passion is the Open Web. He introduced us to OpenID, MicroFormats, OAuth and Webfinger, giving examples of how they are used, and how they are integrated. He said we need to “Solve small pieces of the problem at a time.” I don’t know much about the open web, sources or movement and found this talk really interesting and enlightening.

You probably don’t know this about me, but I’m a bit of a process nut. Not that you can tell by looking at me or observing my work, but I love listening and learning from the way other people work. I’m not in management in anyway, but of all the processes I enjoy knowing about, managing people is the most interesting. Esther Derby come to Webstock with the 13 essential questions managers need to ask to create a design environment for people to do great work:

1. How does the work really get done?
2. What information and tools do people need to do their work?
3. How can we build feedback into the system so people can easily determine and identify errors and solve their own problems?
4. How do you know when the work is done?
5. What is the capacity of the team? “All plans are wishes..”
6. How long does it take to tell if you’re off track?
7. What reward systems are employed? “KPI and bonus systems don’t work..”
8. What message are we sending with our reward system?
9. What message are our policies and procedures sending? “Do we really trust you to make decisions?”
10. What happens to people when they bring unwelcome news? “If you say ‘yes’ to everything, your ‘no’ means nothing.”
11. What is your iterative learning cycle?
12. What do I know that ain’t so? “Most people work for money? performance reviews increase performance? Rewards can reduce cognitive function.”
13. What do I know that I forget at work? “Don’t overstuff the pipe – give people room/time to think.”

Shelley Bernstein held a workshop in the days before Webstock. I came *this* close to going and after experiencing her Fostering Personal Connection to Place suffered a good dose of regret. She was  _outstanding_. Authentic, passionate, dedicated, charming she let us know her mission at Brooklyn Museum was more about community and user experience than anything else. Shelley and her team at the museum have worked hard to create a space that is accessible and welcoming. She said “It’s easier for me to fly to New Zealand than it is for people [in New York] to visit Brooklyn.” She also mentioned the idea of giving up control – the museum allows photography and digital interaction within the museum. They ask their community and listen to the responses from visitors, from comments, from feedback in person, at the museum and from the web site. They are dedicated to infusing content with life and she said “A personal voice makes a difference.” So they encourage people to use their real names, real Twitter accounts, and to amplify the community’s voice, to develop that community on their terms, not those of the museum and to contribute to the community, not just “be there”. Ms Bernstein was inspiring. Later, when speaking to someone who had been at her workshop, they mentioned that she had been extremely nervous about her talk, and believed she wasn’t a very good or confident public speaker. Shelley, if you ever read this, know this, you held us all in the palm of your hand – you carried us on the journey of your beautiful museum with your authentic and passionate believe in community. You were my outstanding talk of the entire conference – and I doubt I am alone in that feeling.

Jeff Atwood said he was so fascinated with “being in the future..” I guess we in New Zealand and Australia are just used to it but it was fun to hear.  He talked about Stack Overflow, collaboratively edited question and answer site for programmers.

Please, don’t let it be interactive by Regine DeBatty who was annoyed and fatigued with interactive art that wasn’t meaningful.

We didn’t get to have Ze Frank this year at Webstock, but swear to god, Rives is just as good. This New York beat poet brilliantly finished our first day of speakers at Webstock. He mixed multimedia, word-play and stories to spin smiles and touch hearts all around the Town Hall. Some of his quotes I captured included: “I was 15 for 6 years straight.” “My weird mind wanders and my brave heart breaks.” “Your once and future lover has made himself at home.” and “Touching myself was like TIVO in a way.” Take any opportunity to see this man – you’ll find slices of him on ted.com.

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

“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.

“[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.

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.

“The internet is the colour of the future.”

Matt wove science fiction and tales of hiking the great steps of America into an inspiring, entertaining and thought-provoking Keynote. A wonderful mind-setting for the conference.

An amazing keynote to end Day One. Cameron paces his way with gentle humour and an attention-grabbing presence.

He talked about Google Wave, and how the team came to some of the decisions around the design of elements such as threaded (for want of a better word) discussions.

Wonderful presentation.

Video or Podcast from Web Directions South 09

“How pissed off would you be if you were the Terminator and you came back in time and forgot to Google Sarah Conner or check her Twitter feed?”

Scott Gledhill, Beyond SEO presentation

Tag-team presentation covering the usual suspects of search engine optimisation. Touching on feeding and education the rest of the business to realise it’s everyone’s focus to produce content, decisions and directions based on good content, to feed the search engine animals.

Presentation at Web Directions South 2009, Sydney Convention Centre, October 8 10.45am

Accessibility Chickens! Damien’s session was the stand-out for me. I enjoyed his style, and his content. Drilling deeper into the whys and hows of encouraging accessibility through the entire process of producing and publishing content for the web.

He reminded us that accessibility is not just for people who are blind or have low vision, there are other very sound reasons for creating sites that follow accessible guidelines. People who access our sites for whom English is a second language, for example; or those whose literacy is low; or people who use assistive technology to access and input with the site; and he reminded us not to forget the aging population who might find fine control of a mouse to hit, say, small button targets quite difficult. He also mentioned ’situational disability’ such as glare on a screen when using technology outside, etc. He urged us to value this market as they tend to be tenacious, determined, and very loyal to sites that meet their needs with less effort than other sites.

He put forth reasonings why accessibility didn’t have to be boring, nor did it have to be expensive. In fact, it could and should be part of good practice across all disciplines of web development.

Damien asked us to ‘embrace accessibility’ – to learn about our (whole) audience, to get the right people with the right skills to work with, to integrate accessibility into the entire project cycle, and to test and measure and seek feedback – throughout the project and ongoing during maintenance and beyond. To stage implementation – starting with the most important aspects and building out from there. Overall he asked as all to be innovative.

“Thanks to the internet and the right assisted technology – never has it been a better time to access information.” “Have cane – will travel.”

“This is the first presentation I’ve given where I’ve heard a happy captioning story.”

Scott retraced on some of Damien McComack’s session, and drilled down a little more in certain areas of new media.

He told us about barriers to access, beyond those already mentioned, such as broadband speeds and uptake, aspects of ‘cloud computing’ and general accessibility (as we refer to it) including the cost of assistive technologies and software.

The four tenants of accessibility:

1. Perceivable (adjustable content, can I read it?) – alt tags, captions, accessible content, contrast, can I see it? can I hear it?
2. Operable (being able to find what you want) – keyboard accessibility, time available to consume content/media, content doesn’t cause seizures, navigation is usable
3. Understandable (content) – is the text readable? understandable? predictable? help users to avoid and correct mistakes, stable over time
4. Robust (other technologies) – authoring tool accessibility (turn it on in your software, then listen to it’s advice)

Taking HTML5 a step further | Sylvia Pfeiffer

[content to come]

My Notes from Day One Sessions

Day One Keynote from Adobe, featuring Mike Chambers, Andrew Spaulding and …

• Packaging is the term used when we take existing content and wrap with additional technology into an installable file for a particular
  platform/operating system. Content is installed with the correct user experience for the platform. Launch content from existing user workflow. Hide raw content in file system. (don’t scare or confuse users – be as seamless and easy as possible)
• Major platforms:
  • Symbian S60 (mostly Nokia phones, some Samsung, Smartphones) packages require SIS (Symbian Install System) format, an SVG image for the icon, the SWF file is treated as passive content.
  • Windows Mobile (Smartphones) packages require CAB format and an ICO image for the icon
  • Nokia (Mid-range consumer phones) require the NFL (Nokia Flash Lite) format for packaging, a PNG image for the icon, a ZIPped file package, points to content rather than installing.
• Packaging tools:
  • SWF2NFL AIR Application
  • SWFPACK.com
  • on the horizon? Adobe Mobile Packager
• Distribution:
  • Flash Lite 3.1 Distributable Player currently supports 31 devices, Flash 8 and AS2.0 content, Video (On2 VP6, Sorenson, 3GPP, H.264), MP3 streaming, data services via XML and SSM (Simplified Security Model).
  • Nokia Ovi
• Funding Opportunities in the FlashLite world:
  • Flash Lite Developer Challenge
  • Nokia “Calling All Innovators”
  • Nokia / Adobe Open Screen Fund

WebDU Podcast [28.4 MB]

still not sure how this saves time – in fact, not entirely sure he even mentioned how it saved time. Phil’s main argument for PureMVC was the complete separation of “church and state” with an increased flexibility for reuse and scalability. Phil created an entire application for sorting WebDU speakers and sessions, with only the interface and data having been pulled together earlier.

Showcasing (?) the new API with examples of custom windows, tagging including customised, animated (spinner class) tagging, perspective shadows, occlusion of overlay items. He provided links to the Google Maps API Flash Group and Hosting Maps.

WebDU Podcast [25.4 MB]

My Notes from Day Two Sessions

Day Two Keynote from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft featuring Alan Noble, Wilf Wilkinson and Mike Kordahi

Alan Noble – Google
“It’s never been a better time to be a developer, so get out there and build stuff!”

I think the very best thing about working at Google (of all the things that must be great about working at Google) is the ability to say “we” …”We developed Google maps…” “We released Chrome… Android…” etc etc. Pretty sweet. Here’s a list of the 6 trends as seen by Alan Noble – and probably anyone who sat down and compiled a list. While the talk was interesting, there wasn’t anything “new” mentioned.

• search (only about 10% done)
• Social Applications (sharing, collaborative, complex business processes)
• Geospacial
• Mobile
• Digitalisation (separating data from medium)
• The Cloud (huge data centres)

Neil “Wilf” Wilkenson – Yahoo

A much more developer focused/ code based talk around YQL and Yahoo! developer tools, online tools etc encouraging mashups and lateral thinking. The guy reminded me of Tim Wayper. I can’t really talk much to this in detail as it was a bit over my head – but a lot of people in the audience were excited by it.. and also perplexed as to how little Yahoo seems to promote itself when it comes to how innovative they appear to be.

• Yahoo! Open Strategy
• Yahoo! Query Language (YQL)
• Design to grids
• Utilise font percentages for accessibility and scalability

Michael Kordahi – Microsoft
“How cool was that? I mean really? YQL: Select for the internet, dude!”
“Shit…I was told not to swear. Can we take a vote? Is ‘shit’ a swear word? No? good. Oh, Shit!”
“Any game developers [here]? [no game developers] Huh? I thought you guys were awesome and stuff!”
referring to Apple “…that fruit company..”

Who knew the most dynamic speaker at this morning’s keynote (actually the entire WebDU so far) would be from Microsoft. Kordahi is passionate (about life I think, not just Microsoft), articulate, animated and a charismatic speaker. Big change in the audience with this speaker was the laughter from women. They (we) liked him and responded by laughing at _all_ his funnies, no matter how small. I’m sure if I’d turned to the woman behind me I would have seen her eyes transfixed on Kordahi while absentmindedly tucking her hair behind her ear. He was totally scoring all over the room and I bet he didn’t even realise it.

News Flash: Virtual Earth is dating Photosynth.

Brian Chau has been a constant since the early Macromedia Software Launch events. The man is perpetually ageless. His accent is particularly endearing, exchanging p’s for b’s and r’s for l’s. I particularly like when he refers to the key board as the “key bort”. Today he set up a multi-user video and chat channel. It sounds easy when broken down into the five steps:

1. create an actionscript communication file (.asc)
2. create a netConnection
3. have the server talk to the client
4. let the client talk to the server
5. remote share the object

Download and install the media server. Create a folder for application. Save the .asc file to the root of app folder. create another folder inside app folder to store media. Utilise the FMS ADMIN CONSOLE to monitor server-side activity and help debug code. Piece of cake!

• netConnection >> netStream >> Data
• files: pacific.adobe.actobat.com/bchau_fms

WebDU Podcast [26.6 MB]

Pixel Bender is a fast filter renderer that can be deployed to After Effects, Flash and Photoshop. Download and install the Adobe Pixel Bender Toolkit.

• .PSK file format for AE (export from PB and drop into AE Plugins folder)
• .PBJ file format for Fl (export filter for Flash)
• .PBK and PBG file format for Ps (export from PB and drop into PS Plugins folder)

Google these peeps: david lollar, Mrdoob, killer kernal/fractal bender. URLs: video-flash.de, derschmale.com, eiromdesign.com, aviary.com

WebDU Podcast [22.8 MB]

WebDU Podcast[28.4 MB]

WebDU Podcast [25.6 MB]