11Jan
This is just a quick post to actually mention on my blog as well (as having previously done so on Twitter) that I lost my mind sometime in December and submitted an idea to talk (which was accepted, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this) at Think Visibility 7 in March.
The reason I say lost my mind has nothing to do with the conference itself more my aversion to public speaking or almost anything that draws attention which could then be negative. But hell it’s 2012 I’m apparently considered a grown up so I’m sure I can spend 45 minutes of my life trying something new and scary.
So with that in mind if you’re free on the 3rd of March and have a slightly odd interest in a design based talk at what is primarily an SEO conference with some extra stuff thrown in then please come along. I’m sure my talk will either be informative or entertaining (in you’ll see me crumble on stage), hell I might even manage both 
9Jun
As I’ve previously blogged about, I decided to forego the usual trip to London for my yearly conference fix and instead tried to find smaller, more local conferences that would also be better value for money. DIBI was such a conference that took place over the last couple of days, and as is customary I have to follow up with a review of my experience.
So in a rather linear fashion I’ll work through the conference and stick in some extra thoughts at the end…
Fog on the Tyne
As conference cities go Newcastle is counted as local even with the 2 hour train journey to get there. My experience of the city has never been exhaustive and this won’t be changing after the last couple of days but I must admit the location of the conference was excellent.
With all the venues within a stone’s throw of each other and the Tyne (with the Millennium Bridge) in-between it certainly was a picturesque location in which to hold a conference and given the conference is held within The Sage I was surprised that the conference is not priced more highly (though of course I’m very happy with the pricing).
Continue reading “DIBI 2: A Review”
7Mar
Firstly I’m not an SEO so at times I feel I have no right in going to Think Visibility let alone have work spending company money on sending me. There are not only the tickets but hotels, food and drink all weekend that I got with hardly dipping into my own moth filled pocket. So I feel bad if I don’t go to sessions or learn quite what I feel is enough to warrant my attendance.
And I wish I could say I did learn lots, and that I came away with ideas that although not particularly relevant to me as a designer still would help improve my work. But I can’t, not totally anyway, instead I missed a couple of sessions and a couple of others I attended did bore me a little. This is nothing against the conference or the speakers, more likely my own impression of what I’ve learnt, which is probably more than I can think of now whilst still suffering the after effects of the weekend.
When I go to design conferences I ensure I go to learn stuff in the knowledge that I hate networking and I don’t know personally all that many people in the design community. Actually it’s not that I hate networking but I struggle when wandering up to a complete stranger or group of strangers and trying to involve myself in the conversation. With Think Visibility I had the benefit of being able to hang around with Dave and Becky and get involved in the conversations that they found themselves in. Therefore meeting loads of interesting people, hearing some side splittingly funny stories and getting a few handshakes from people impressed with my work on Dave’s website which was of course rather cool.
Continue reading “My ThinkVis”
13Jan
Although I’ve been to FOWD for the past three years the 2011 ticket prices just didn’t appear to be value for money with what seemed an aggressive price increase. Although for those three years I’ve been lucky enough for work to pay for me to attend the conference I thought I would maybe try out something different this year.
The reason FOWD seems to not be such value for money is that there are more reasonably priced conferences being launched that still appear to retain the same if not higher standards. The likes of DIBI and New Adventures in Web Design stand out. With such conferences costing much less than FOWD I thought it may be more beneficial to try a few smaller ones and see a wider range of speakers with different areas of expertise.
So this morning, after checking work would foot the cost, I signed up for DIBI 2011. The fact it is pretty local is what initially attracted me but with a decent level of speakers and the addition of Jeffery Zeldman as keynote speaker it appeared this would be the year to give this and possibly other conferences a go. Hopefully I won’t be disappointed and following the reaction last year’s conference received it should be good fun.