More Thoughts from WebVisions
When Dan Cederholm (there’s that name again… sorry) came back from the @media conference in London, he blogged about dumping his cranberry juice in his lap at the very beginning of the trip. Not fun.
Well, I’m not going across the Atlantic, but on the way home from WebVisions, I am going across the country. I’m going from Portland, Oregon to Providence, RI via… Phoenix. Yeah, a big checkmark across the good ol’ U S of A. I’m on the Phoenix to Providence leg right now (the five hour flight that came after the three hour one). Since it’s a five hour flight, Southwest gave us a WHOLE CAN of soda. Of course, I open it up and, it explodes.
How do you deal with it? I’m in the window seat, so it’s not like I can hold it over an empty seat until it’s done erupting. And it’s not like I can move around at all. I even had my PowerBook out (but closed), sitting on the traytable. Luckily, I quickly moved the can away to save it. Then I’ve got it hanging over the back of the traytable… I look down and my laptop bag is open with my recently signed copy of Dan’s Bulletproof Web Design exposed. Oh hell no, that’s not going to do.
The only thing I have left to do is just let it finish erupting while running down my leg. Not a pleasurable experience, but the laptop and the book are fine. I guess a super-sticky leg isn’t as bad as a lapful of cranberry juice though.
With that, I will go into some final thoughts about WebVisions:
- This was my first modern web design conference. I absolutely loved it. With the exception of one snoozer of a session, every single one was inspiring and insightful. I can’t wait until next year’s event.
- I met Dan Cederholm. Twice. I made sure to talk about Dave Roberts.
- People like Jeremiah Owyang are what the so-called “Web 2.0″ is all about. It’s about sharing, collaboration, and helping. I used to feel like web design was similar to many other fields—people were protective of their intellectual property. Not this new crop of designers. They write, they share, they help. And it makes this a great field to be in. It’s not just Jeremiah, but all I had to do was mention to him that I was getting into community and he immediately showed me things to help me out.
- The Design Panel was one of the most enlightening seventy-five minutes of my professional career.
- I have never seen such a high concentration of Macs ANYWHERE (and I’ve been to a Macworld Expo).
- User Experience design is so much cooler than… well, anything else. I’m pretty jealous of the jobs that Jeremiah, Kelly Goto and Gene Smith have. I think a lot of what they are doing can help Aptima, and I plan to get that ball rolling.
- For some reason, I feel like the Derek Powazek and Heather Champ reality show would be addictive to us techies.
- When I started Traces of Inspiration, it was really just to dump some thoughts and links while researching community and Web 2.0 for a new Aptima project. I blogged my WebVisions notes and suddenly I’m getting my first trackbacks ever. I’m being linked to, and it’s pretty darned cool. Jeremiah was the first trackback I ever received, for waht it’s worth. I told him that and he was like “cool… wait… first ever?”
- And lastly, there’s just one thing that I don’t like about WebVisions… the fact that I was away from my wife and little girl for a few days. I’m still a fairly new dad and that’s very hard for me (harder for Erin, I’m sure). I can’t imagine how Dan Cederholm feels after all this speaking with a little one of his own at home (dude, Jack is totally adorable!).
- I want to thank those who set up WebVisions and the folks at Aptima who’s projects paid the bills for me to go. It was well worth it for not just the projects, but for the company itself.
Some more wrap-ups:
Dan Cederholm
Jeremiah Owyang
D. Keith Robinson
Bryan Veloso
Micki Krimmell
Matt Anderson
Erin Julian
Bryan Veloso
Nick Finck
Conference Web Page
Remember the old days when you could have 2 sodas if you preferred?
[...] Summation [...]
Thanks for the kind words, no reason to be jealous for the job I have, it’s not as sexy as the other folks you’ve mentioned.
I did create my role however and was able to write my own job description! What fun –it took some courage, MANY hours, and ability to work with others for a common goal.
I wrote about being a corporate blog evangelist here:
http://jeremiahthewebprophet.blogspot.com/2006/03/how-to-be-corporate-blog-evangelist_10.html
Ditto what Jeremy said. (Though my job *is* kinda sexy.
I don’t think we met in Portland, Adam… but if we cross paths again please say hi.
We didn’t meet, Gene, but perhaps next year.
And thanks for the link Jeremiah. I’m slowly but surely going to get through a lot of your older information. That was pretty sweet seeing your post about Instructables today… I was like… yeah, I knew about that Friday!
Very nice to have met you, Adam. When I hear “Dave Roberts” outside of New England, it makes me feel like I’m home again
Thanks for the excellent Webvisions write-ups as well.
Thanks for all of the great write-ups of the seminars. Your notes were easy to understand and follow – and lots of good information packed into them. I wish I could have attended, but I guess I’ll have to plan for the next one.
Again, thanks for the great notes and details!
Peace,
Nate
Doesn’t look like we were able to meet either, Adam. Here’s to next year then. Thanks for those great session notes!
Thanks, Matthew. Checked out your blog post and if there’s one thing I took from it, it is to hang out more next time. Seems like everyone had a blast after hours. I should save project work for plane rides instead.
If there’s one thing I’m glad I *did* do this time around, though… it’s take great notes on the seminars I attended. Otherwise, none of you would be reading this right now.