Which got thinking about what I got from WD06 and was it better to gain knowledge or be inspired about a subject. Easy, inspiration is far more important to me, if I am inspired I usually will go quickly and acquire extra knowledge from where ever I can, even if it means a lot of experimenting on my behalf. Knowledge is good, but being inspired to learn more about a subject is better.

The presentations that inspired me most at WD06, were not on topics I knew and care about, Derek’s workshop on accessibility improved my knowledge, but did not inspire me, unlike his presentation last year. Or even subjects I had limited knowledge and I knew I needed to learn more about, Jeremy’s workshop gave me the confidence to handle DOM scripting and AJAX. The results of Thomas and Donna’s IA presentations, was that I surprised myself with my level of understanding of IA and the knowledge I already had combined with what I learnt gave me the confidence to go to OZIA without the fear of being overwhelmed.

The inspiration came from unlikely sources, topics that I usually only pay lip service to. Kelly’s iterative app presentation really hit home, with a major project I have to manage coming up, everything just made sense, I will be applying what I learnt and chasing up all the links that Kelly gave during her presentation. Andy’s presentation on inspired design just got me thinking, and that is a dangerous thing, expect a serious blog realignment soon and some sort of electronic scrapbook.

As for Myles, Derek’s presentations on accessibility did get him thinking and has sparked his interest in accessibility.

You find inspiration in the most surprising places.

tagged WD06

1. Jeremy Keith’s DOM scripting workshop, which filled in the gaps I had from reading his book and I have gone from somebody who could do DOM scripting and unobtrusive javascript, to somebody who is confident in using DOM scripting and unobtrusive javascript.
2. Getting the solution to my problem with flash and Mac OsX from James Edwards while standing outside a pub at 2230 while having a cigarette (or three).
3. During a WD06 session viewing a photo on flickr of Andy watching via my blog the video I uploaded to youtube of him giving the britpack undies to Andrew K. then reading Ben’s blog post about it.With the video, photo, blogging and viewing all taking place in the University Hall on the same day. Web 2.0 MFG.
4. Kelly Goto’s iterative apps presentation. It was one of those light bulb moments for me. I have a major project coming up and the methodology Kelly highlighted just made so much sense.
5. Getting a hug from Malarkey, sorry Molly getting a hug from you was one of the highlights of WE05, but this time it was the hug from your beau.
6. Thomas Van der Wal presentation on tagging at OZIA, it really opened my eyes to the possibilities and advantages of tagging.
7. My head not exploding after two days of solid Information Architecture like Donna said would happen, even though Mark Bernstein made a damn good attempt with his keynote at 0830 on the first day.
8. The best bit was the people, they where just so damn good to be around. I will not mention names, because while I like name dropping, the list would be so long and I don’t want to risk missing anybody out, thank you, you should know who you are.

Regrets I had a few

1. Smoking like a chimney for the whole time, after not smoking for years.
2. Drinking far too much, too often. Damn you Kevin Yank, I suppose I will have to buy a few more Sitepoint books so you can provide drink cards next year.
3. Not saying thank you to Thomas for his presentation on tagging at OZIA. I thought Thomas would be around for the second day of OZIA, but alas this was not the case.

So with WD06 and the inaugural OZIA over where next, well I am heading home tired but enthused which is what I wanted. Will I be back next year, most definitely for both as long as Eric keeps OZIA close to WD07. Even if it is totally self funded like this year. But in the meantime I am seriously considering going to SXSW, for the same reason I went to WD06 to get enthused and met more people.

tagged WD06 OZIA

Even without wifi access for the workshop days, I attempted to connect to the people I met. This earned me a web connection whore stickers from Andrew K. and Ben Buchanan, but connecting paid dividends. I found from Drew’s profile that other than probably the only non posse attendee from Perth he was using the same CMS as DOCEP and we got to swap war stories and will stay in contact. When I spoke to Todd at the Sydney Port80 meet I found La Trobe University have just installed the CMS we are considering for the library. I was going to catch up with Todd at WD06, but never did, so I just grabbed his hcard from web connections so I get in contact with him.

tagged WD06 web connections web connections whore

Andy Clarke presents Andrew Krespanis a pair of britpack pair of underpants at WD06

1130 This should be the right video now

tagged WD06

tagged WD06

Jeremy Keith workshop on DOM Scripting was good. He have a fairly broad audience so some of what he said was even a little basic for me and a little went over my head. The workshop also followed his book, which was great for me because there was a couple of things in the book I did not get. With Jeremy there to explain them I got them straight away. This workshop took me from somebody who understood the concepts of DOM scripting and unobtrusive javascript to someone who is confident in praticising DOM scripting and unobtrusive javascript.

Last year Derek Featherstone presentation on accessible forms, came at exactly the right time for me and changed how I worked with forms. This year, the presentation expanded to cover AJAX provide more details and convince me of the need to consider speech recognition users. While it will not have the same dramatic effect on my work, I wish I knew some of things I learnt yesterday, last year, I now have confidence to make my forms and other AJAX content accessible.

And the the networking well …

tagged WD06

1600 21 September, the ruby monkeys put my profile back ;-) it was only for 10 minutes or so and only my profile, everybody else’s I checked worked fine.

The workshops will be day one:

• Molly Holzschlag and Andy Clarke
• Jeremy Keith

and day two

• Derek Featherstone
• Kelly Goto

As much as I would like to see Molly and Malarkey tag team of HTML and CSS. I am enjoying and learning a lot from Jeremy’s DOM scripting book to miss his workshop. And Derek’s workshop is a no brainer for me. I applied more from what I learnt from his session at WE05 than any body else’s, including Tantek’s.

tagged web directions web directions 06 WD06