Comments on: Gaining Knowledge vs. Inspiration : WD06 postscript

By: Ben Buchanan

Ben Buchanan — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 03:52:31 +0000

At both WE05 and WD06 I found the most inspiring presentations were non-technical, or at least less technical.

I don’t think things necessarily have to be ‘bleeding edge’ or whatever. In this age of rapid prototyping and insanely fast pace, sometimes we forget to go back and do the new stuff *really well*.

But ultimately it really is about the people - gathering the tribe :)

By: nick

nick — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 08:01:21 +0000

Cameron, you are right it is more about the people than the presentations, I learnt and was inspired as much if not more by the people I met and the discussions I had with them, than the presentations. That is why I will definitely be back for WD07 and are seriously considering SXSWi.

I did not talk about the people in my post by choice, I wanted to talk about what presentations inspired me and why. It is easier to talk about the presentations (limited number and I knew which ones I attended) than the people, I met so many, learnt from some, was inspired by others and not necessarily remember all their names, plus it would be an extremely long post.

By: Michael McCorry

Michael McCorry — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 07:15:19 +0000

I had the same sort of vibe, although my inner monologue after WD06 was kinda like: “Man that was cool. Did I learn much though? No not really, but man, that was COOL. The Ajax bit was entertaining, not really informative though, but meeting Jeremy was COOL. COOOOOL! AGAIN! MORE! Wheeeee!”.

Then I sobered up.

Easily, the best bit was talking with other people who knew what they were talking about. Doesn’t happen a lot out where I live. Also, its the inspiration and motivation to get off my bum and finish that side project I’ve been putting off. I can only imagine the coolness that goes on at (and comes out of) SXSW.

By: Tuna

Tuna — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 02:01:18 +0000

Yes WD06 was inspirational, I’m still buzzing with ideas I have leveraged from various sources at the conference. Was I inspired by the core speakers, yes and no, more often than not they confirmed I was moving in the right direction professionally. Too often I found myself in a session thinking “I do it that way too, just now I have a label for it”. It was the secondary tier of speakers (that I didn’t know of) that gave me the inspirational ideas. This was especially true in OzIA.

Did I learn anything new, not really, some, nothing major or earthshattering. Like Cameron said its all for the networking, the community etc. The like minds, one week of geeky tech talk, too much information, too much beer and way too many names and faces.

Now after having been to a few web conferences over the years all organised by different groups. I can safely say WD did have the rigth buzz about it.

But is WD too focused and too narrow in its scope. Its mainly focused on CSS / standards and accessibily usability. Is this a good thing. Can the momentium be maintained for 2007. Is there a need to inject a good deal of new topics into the mix. Should there be a more interface design sessions or a few coder sessions (besides Javascript)?

By: Myles Eftoss

Myles Eftoss — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 23:57:36 +0000

Don’t get me wrong, the opportunity to meet up with the big names in industry was the best thing about the conference, as Cameron mentiones in his blog post today, the buzz is about meeting like minded peole who you can talk tech with and who actually understand, or may even have a better understanding of what you are talking about.

I guess because this was my first conference, I didn’t know what to expect. But I think I’ve gotten the bug now :)

By: Cameron Adams

Cameron Adams — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 19:05:42 +0000

At a narrowly focused conference like Web Directions, where are you going to go for something which you know nothing about?

Nowadays, speakers are unlikely to debut something at a conference which they haven’t already blogged or talked about previously. It’s what they were brought in to do — talk about a specific idea/technology/technique.

If you’re tapped into that network, it’s not really the presentations you go to a conference for. It’s more about the networking, the community.

At SXSW the presentations I found the most intriguing were the ones from people I’d never heard of, areas I never worked in. But you can afford to do that at SXSW because speakers speak for free, and the scale is massive. WD has to have some drawcards who are known for what they speak about and will speak predictably about it.

I think Mark Pesce really worked because most people at the conference would have never heard of him, though he may be big in his particular area. He’s not really a web developer, a web designer, or even a web technologist. But what he says makes those sort of people think.