Webstock Mini
I thought Webstock Mini last Tuesday was great! More than any other event we’ve run outside of the the main conference, there was a real buzz, a feeling of networking, and, most of all, a sense of shared community. Maybe it’s because people are recognising others from these events. Maybe it was the venue - the Paramount Theatre on a lovely balmy Wellington summer evening. Whatever, it was just plain fun to be wandering around during the breaks, talking and listening to over 110 like-minded people.
First speaker, Rod Drury, talked on “Interaction Design for Competitive Advantage”. I liked the examples, and especially the sneak preview of Xero, which looked stunning. The idea is essentially design-led development and it just makes complete sense to me. A focus on the experience of using a product, where experience is meant in the widest sense, has the potential to break open a market in the way the iPod has. Using MYOB, which Xero is directly targeting, is something I haven’t heard anyone say nice things about.
So it’s not just designing something that looks great. It’s not just making something that’s a delight to use. It’s not just developing something that is technically impressive. And it’s not just bringing something to market that fulfills or creates a need. It’s doing all of those at the same time, and at the right time.
Rod’s central point seemed to be that interaction design, used properly, allowed a lot of the things that needed to be designed, tested, refined, thrown away to be done early on in the development process. So that decisions could be made before it was too costly to change, and that development could start within the proper parameters. Like I said, it makes a lot of sense to me.
Peter Gutmann talked on the Digital Copyright Bill. I wanted to ask him whether the proposed wording of the bill was because of cock-up or conspiracy. It seems probably both. Cock-up because a lot of the issues involved are technical, and quite probably the drafters of the bill haven’t quite understand how some of these things work. Conspiracy because, well, content providers has vested interests and New Zealand’s membership of the World Trade Organisation no doubt carries responsibilities [where’s the HTML tag for “sarcasm” when you need it] as well as privileges. Peter was great. A geek in the best sense of the word - long hair and dressed in jeans and Windows Vista t-shirt. Who said irony is dead!
The final part of the evening was the “10 x 2″ session. Ten speakers for a somewhat loose 2 minutes each on a somewhat loose topic - “How the internet changed my life!” A variety of ages, experiences and presentation styles were all in evidence. And somehow it all worked. I liked Mark Cubey’s a lot. I’ve admired him ever since I arrived at Victoria University in 1980 and he was writing in and editing Salient, pumping out great concert reviews of the Fall.
So I’m already thinking up topics and speakers for the next Webstock Mini. I have no life!
On the subject of Webstock, Hustle for Russell is a great cause for one of our favourite people.