Archive for ‘places’ category

We held the third gathering of the Markup & Style Society last night (a local Boston-area meetup for web geeks that Ethan Marcotte and I started a while back). This one was different and contained more awesomeness, for a variety of reasons.

The kind folks at Filament Group hosted the event at their downtown Boston studio. The incredibly generous Freshview donated 18 pizzas, beer and wine for all 50 attendees. Freshview are makers of Campaign Monitor, the popular email newsletter campaign app, as well as creators of useful tools and resources for newsletter designers. Thank you thank you, Freshview.

Adobe donated two copies of CS3 Web Premium that we raffled off along with a few books at the end of the night. So we knew at least two people would go home happy no matter what happened.

While previous meetups have all been about beer and socializing, we may have surprised people with four short talks. A free, mini conference if you will. Ethan gave a brilliant presentation on some tricks he’s enabled in his freakishly bulletproof, fluid layout (Ethan’s write-up). I rambled on about “Gridlasticness”: taking an em-based approach to a strict grid. Josh Porter talked about craftsmanship as it relates to the web — a topic near and dear to my heart. It was sprinkled with “right on” moments and quotes like this, regarding the Shaker design philosophy:

Don’t make something unless it is both necessary and useful, but if it is both necessary and useful, don’t hesitate to make it beautiful.

Scott Jehl closed the show with an excellent talk on how progressive enhancement plays a big role in the projects he tackles at Filament Group. Read more about Filament’s process over at their newly launched lab (Filament’s Maggie Costello Wachs’ write-up).

All in all, ’twas a great night, and it made up for seeing just one single panel at SXSW just days earlier. We’ll have to do it again soon. Blatently tooting our own horn here, Patrick Haney dug it, evidenced by his tweet:

Really felt like I got more out of the four short talks tonight at M&SS than I did at a week of SXSW

Thanks to the speakers, sponsors and especially Filament for the venue. We’ve also been planning on adding more formal workshops or full day conference-style events to the mix in the future. New England needs more of this, methinks. Stay tuned.

Update: Jenny Bergman has posted some wonderful photos of the event. Thanks, Jenny!

I was originally planning on skipping this year’s SXSW, but finally caved and booked a quick, two-night visit to the land of a million geeks. Each year, the event seems to grow exponentially, and after 2007, I couldn’t imagine doing it again if the trend continued. But eventually I realized there are far too many people in one place at one time that I need to connect with. That, and JetBlue flies direct from BOS to AUS.

I won’t be speaking this year, and I’m quite happy about that. Instead, I’ll be trying to cram as much catching up as I can over 2.5 days. I’ll also be carrying as many Foamee coasters as I can, so be sure to say hi and ask for one (free!).

Ethan and I are pleased to announce another meeting of The Markup & Style Society next month. It’s a semi-regular, casual meetup for New England area web geeks. This time, things are a little more interesting, and even more secretive. Here are the details:

• Markup & Style Society
  Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 7pm
  Location: To be announced (Near South Station , Boston)

We need to limit the number of guests due to space, and we’ll be keeping track of first 50 people who RSVP via Upcoming. Unfortunately only those folks will be able to attend, so mark your calendars early.

A fun and interesting evening is promised, with after-meetup drinks at a local pub to follow (that’s really the best part, isn’t it?). We’re also looking for a friendly sponsor to cover pizza during the event. Interested? Let us know and you’ll be forever remembered as “that awesome company that gave us pizza that one time at that thing a while back”.

I just returned from New Zealand, where I spoke at Webstock. I am tired. I had a tremendous time. I was amazed at the quality of the organization of the conference. I loved the branding that was found on everything from the t-shirt to the speakers’ dinner menus. I saw many old friends and met new ones. I think my talk went over pretty well. I missed out on a lot of the talks due to being obsessive about my slides. I found out I’m not the only one that does that.

I took a lot of pictures. I rented a car and drove up through the center of the North Island and back. I was scared to drive on the opposite side of the road. I loved the espresso in Wellington, in particular People’s Coffee which was free throughout the conference. I’d like to attend more conferences that dispense free, high-quality espresso. I wish I could’ve visited the South Island. I really should’ve enabled mobile roaming before I left the country. I think kiwis are extremely friendly people. I found out that the term kiwi comes from the bird and not the fruit.

I never had a February 11, 2008. I missed my family terribly. I’m calling New Zealand “earth concentrate”, where a two-hour drive can take you through 10 different landscapes. I saw a few movie stars at the hotel in Wellington. I left my iPhone USB cable at a motel near Lake Taupo. I paid $39NZ for a new iPhone USB cable. I am thankful and honored for having to the opportunity to travel so far to talk about web design. I’ll be forever grateful to the hard-working Webstock organizers, in particular Natasha Hall and Mike Brown.

I think I’ll post this, just as it is.

Just a quick reminder of next week’s meet-up of the Markup & Style Society. Ethan and I have occasionally put together these informal gatherings in Boston for the past few years. They’re always a good time, and we’re always amazed by the turnouts.
So join us next Wednesday the 26th at Boston Beer Works on Canal. The format of these meetings is pretty simple: we meet and enjoy beverages for a few hours. That’s it. Perhaps we need a secret handshake or other ceremonial traditions. Those will evolve in time. We do have plans to expand this a bit in the future, and would love any ideas on a venue around town to hold a more structured meeting.
Lastly, there are a few more pinſ available if you don’t have one yet. Hope to see you fellow New Englanders there.

I’ve been meaning to write up some thoughts on last week’s “An Event Apart Chicago”:http://aneventapart.com/events/chicago07/. It was my first trip to the city in the middle west that sits on a big lake. Hot dogs were eaten. “Cheezborgers”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/adactio/1255681470/ were inhaled. Deep dish pizza was shoveled. I was inflated. Chicago is without a doubt a food city — but how the heck does anyone stay under 300 lbs. there?
The event itself _was excellent_. Of course it was excellent. Whenever you get a bunch of great speakers and cool attendees under one roof for a few days, that’s the way it’s going to go. But there are other reasons why this particular show was a success.
In my opinion: one track continues to rule. It rules because you don’t have to decide where to go and what to miss. But it also rules because the conversations in the hallways and pubs can be centered around the same sessions. There’s no “ah, I missed that one because I saw ______ instead”. There’s a complete shared experience between all attendees, and that’s a very good thing.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is SXSW, which will have approximately 23,867 panel sessions next year. Maybe we’ll be able to talk about one of them together. Maybe we’ll also bump into each other at that party on Sixth. Or more likely, we’ll leave feeling like we’ve missed the _real_ conference.
Another key to the single track at AEA: breaks. And a lot of them. An hour is a long time to sit, and a nice break after every session really helps. It also helps in that it gives more opportunity to chat with people. And you can chat about the session that just happened while it’s fresh. It seems obvious, but not every event is structured like this.
I’m bummed I missed “Liz Danzico”:http://bobulate.com/’s The Seven Lies of Information Architecture talk. But I was busy freaking out about my session that immediately followed, going over slides up to the last minute, as usual.
“Derek Featherstone”:http://www.boxofchocolates.ca/ wowed us with a “semantically rich crossword puzzle styled with CSS”:http://www.boxofchocolates.ca/projects/crossword/.
A highlight was Coudal‘s closing keynote, where he talked about the balance between work that pays the bills and the personal projects that are exciting, fun and if you’re lucky can also pay the bills. A lot of what he was saying hit close to home — the idea that maybe we all don’t have short attention spans. We get inspired and have those moments of sheer excitement when diving into something new. I liked that Jim said this was OK. See the hilarious “aforelinked film”:http://www.simplebits.com/notebook/2007/08/30/regrets.html that supplements this.
It was a quick trip, but luckily was able to squeeze in a river boat tour of downtown Chicago with friends old and new. The architecture is incredible, and sitting on a boat floating through the city is my kind of sightseeing. From the river, one can take in the hundreds of skyscrapers that pepper the riverside. Just amazing.
Photos were “taken by me”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/simplebitsdan/sets/72157601786721091/ and “by many others”:http://www.flickr.com/groups/aeachicago07/pool/.

Last Wednesday, I emerged from Paddington Station and hopped in a cab. “EYElington, please,” I said. “IZlington, you mean,” said the cabbie. “Oh, right.” Then, after asking how much the approximate cost of the trip wil be, he replied, “Whatever it says on the meter.” Twenty minutes and £23 later, I’m at the Business Design Center in the London borrough of Islington (make that IZlington) for @media 2007 — European Edition.

‘Twas a great conference, of course: 2 days over 2 tracks. Lots of inspirational stuff from talented folks of the internets. A special standout though was Drew McLellan and Simon Collison’s tongue-in-cheek battle, High-Noon Shoot-Out: Design vs. Implementation. When Drew starting passing out picket signs that read “There is no fold!” I believe there was no way to top it for the rest of the show.

My talk could’ve gone better I think, as a few few people even told me afterwards I seemed a bit “off”. Ah well, I blame the jetlag. It was the third time giving this talk, and those times previous I’ve received really positive feedback.

The highlight of the trip, was when Jeremy Keith presented me with a bottle of Pinot Noir (and Joe Clark a carton of cranberry juice), on stage during the Hot Topics panel that closed the conference. The wine was a gift for the word “bulletproof” that graces the title of Jeremy’s excellent book, Bulletproof Ajax. It was a nice wine (the label escapes me now, damn I should’ve written it down) and three of us managed to polish it off over the course of the hour. Naturally, I’m thinking a glass of wine should be sitting next to me during _every_ presentation from here on out.

Later during the panel, Joe Clark announced that he has retired from his work on web accessbility. He’s done an enormous amount in the field — and his efforts should be applauded. Best of luck with what’s next, Joe. This follows a recent announcement from Molly Holzschlag leaving the web conference circuit. Again, enormous contributions to the field, and an inspiring speaker.

Two weeks prior to England, the whole family was over in San Francisco for @media America, followed by a few days of sightseeing around the Bay Area. This was a smaller, more intimate affair, with a single track over 2 days. But smaller can be a positive thing, and single tracks work when the presenters are top notch. A standout here was Richard Ishida speaking on internationalization — a topic I’m not directly tied to on a daily basis, yet his presentation was entertaining, informative and delivered flawlessly. Be sure to catch him speak.

My talk in SF went fine, although after a brief segment on microformats, I mistakenly said something like “stay tuned for much more on microformats later today. Tantek Çelik presentation is sure to be *less* cohesive than mine”. Laughter erupts, and at the time I wasn’t entirely sure why. I was enjoying the moment. It wasn’t until Tantek (good sport that he is) came up to me afterwards, chuckling. Oopsie.

Note for next trip: toddlers do not appreciate wine tastings.

We’re packing up over here for a little trip to San Francisco for @media followed by a few days of vacation. The whole family is coming with me, and we’re excited about everything, save the 6+ hour flight. Snacks? Check. Sesame Street? Check. Non-noisy toys? Check.

I’m posting this primarily to warn anyone of a delay in email response that’ll begin shortly. Well, there’s always a delay these days, but it’ll be even worse for the next little while.

See you on the left coast, or when we return.

Don’t wait for An Event Apart to come to your city — just make plans to catch the next one wherever it is (Seattle is next). AEA Boston was probably the first two-day, single-track conference where I felt like _every_ session was extremely valuable. I came away from each presentation either inspired or educated (or both). The easy, 20 mile commute to Boston didn’t hurt either, and having Kerry and Jack see me speak for the first time was fantastic (at one point up on stage, I could hear “Dada!” from the back, and I’ll tell you … that calms the nerves).

I had fun talking about “Interface Design Juggling” — a potpourri of color, typography, favicons (yes, favicons!), microformats and bulletproofness. This was the first run through of this particular set of ideas, but I think it went pretty smoothly. I was relieved to hear several people thank me for devoting time to favicons — a fun topic that I think deserves more attention. And I’m looking forward to expanding that segment in the future.

The latest updated versions of the slide deck can be found here (in PDF form) for those that were in attendance. As usual, they might not make sense without the commentary — and more importantly some of the transitions are muddled into a single slide (Keynote kept crashing when I tried to export each transition into its own slide).

Thank you to Jeffrey and Eric for inviting me to speak — it was quite an honor to share the bill with such an amazing group.

John Allsopp said in Vancouver last month, “you bring people together and stuff happens”. He was referring to Web Directions North at the time, but you could certainly apply that to any good conference. And it’s true, there’s no substitute for meeting with like-minded people in physical space. Stuff happens that wouldn’t happen otherwise on either end of bits and bytes.

SXSW 2007 came to a close earlier this week, and the reasons for returning have been confirmed yet again: going to SXSW is about people. The panels and presentations are a bonus — but it’s primary asset (for me) is about connecting and reconnecting with people. People who share a common thread about the work we do and the stuff that matters in relation to that work.

SXSW was big this year. I missed the previous year, and so it seemed _really_ big compared to 2004 and 2005. An overwhelming schedule, not enough time to see everyone, etc. Surely they’ll reach a point of maximum capacity — but it doesn’t appear there’s a cap on attendees. This year, I put far less pressure on myself to stick in panels all day. Instead, I chose a few I couldn’t miss, then didn’t mind skipping a few because lunch (and interesting conversation) ran later than expected.

In terms of the overall vibe of the conference, I think Jeremy Keith nails it here

… technology is being relegated to its correct role: a tool for allowing people to connect and share their stories. Whether it’s Ruby on Rails, Ajax, tagging or the World Wide Web itself, I got the feeling that what really matters now is personal communication — storytelling by any other name.”

It didn’t occur to me until after reading Jeremy’s post — but there was a _real_ quality to the things people were excited about, talking about, working on, etc. That was motivating and inspiring.

I’d be on any panel with Brian Oberkirch. The guy just makes it easy. It was fun talking about something other than CSS, and our _power session_ panel ran more like an interview about working remotely, outside the Bay Area and what that means in creating for the web. I wish we had time for questions though, as several people came up to the stage after the session ended and we all had some really interesting discussion that would’ve been great for the whole room. Ah well. I’m half-hoping they ditch the 25 minute sessions next year.

I was also honored and flattered to introduce Andy Clarke and Jason Santa Maria: Bullet Tooth Web Design: Plan Your Web Site like Pulling off a Robbery. The room was _packed_ (and rightfully so to see those dudes) and the gag was a funny one. The best part was the continuation of the metaphor throughout all of the Q&A, with the audience framing their questions as if the entire thing was rehearsed.

All in all, good fun. I’m getting more and more out of the smaller, more focused conferences these days, but in getting the most bang for your buck, you can’t beat Austin in March.