Don’t know if you have noticed but the web is becoming obsessed with video. First off we had YouTube and the like with the publication of amateur video and the associated commenting.

Now the web has moved on from all that to conversational video. So has video killed the forum, the IRC, the blog. The interesting point for users in Australia is the low bandwidth of the broadband services can make the use of these services is all but impossible in some places. Still there are some interesting services now available:

Seesmic

We have Seesmic, this is still in alpha. I haven’t reviewed or really criticised Seesmic about its Adobe Flex based interface. It has a lot of problems, but they are slowly getting to them all one at a time it seems. What is Seesmic? Well it’s really like a forum of video conversations. Others have likened it to twitter with video; but it is more like a forum, you post a video like a forum post and people reply to that post, creating a separated stringed conversation on the topic at hand.

There is no text based chat component. Presently it is very hard to find friends, and to follow a conversation or topic. But overall Seesmic like twitter can be addictive. Seesmic would I feel work well in the mobile web space.

Ustream

Then there is Ustream.tv. In the main, you can stream video from your webcam and have multiple audio inputs and a stream of IRC style responses. Ustream lacks the video conversations facility and is clearly targeting the single video broadcast to the wide audience model. This is good, but in my thinking this is a little old school method, and is just really an extension of services from a web cam that have been available for years.

Qik.com

And we have the mobile kid on the block, Qik.com. Qik allows you to stream videos from your phone for your friends to comment or reply with their own videos. You can also engage friends in Twitter or Facebook with the live video conversation (videosation). The really cool feature is that you can mash it with twitter and chat like in Ustream with the broadcaster as they stream their mobile videosation to the world. Again it’s a one to many service. The part that makes it really interesting is that the core is built around the mobile web.

Yahoo Live

Finally to top this off is Yahoo Live that started with a few rocky moments. Personally I had few problems getting Yahoo Live to work, and still have major issues with the flex application hanging my browser when I finish using it (that is close the tab).

Yahoo live allows you to create a video stream channel in which others can join you with their own streaming video conversations or lifecasts. This is supplemented with the use of a IRC facility.

The problems with Yahoo Live is that its hard to find and follow the conversation when over five people are all streaming at once. This brings back a major drawback of the interface. Clearly this was a limitation to reduce the throughput on bandwidth, but overall this could make the tool unworkable when a large group of people are using it.

There is no facility to zoom in a make another video the focus while maintaining the same channel. Oh and aside there is no social networking features and it’s not mobile enabled. Nice first cut Yahoo, but for your resources a little lame. I would check it out quick, as I can see it being first on the Microsoft shopping block.

So what is the Solution

Were is all this going? Good question, it’s centering around the conversation or constant life streaming. Which is good as that is what people are all about, interaction with others. It would be ideal to see a service that was all these things, especially focusing on the mobile web and not the fixed desktop:

• Static video conversation threads.
• Mobile web based streams.
• Multiple live conversational video streams (many to many).
• Supplemented with IRC.
• Live one to many and many to many (beyond 5) streaming

What do you think, have these services nailed it or are they all just off the mark a little?

Technorati Tags: lifestreaming, conversation, video, IRC, twitter, qik, yahoo+live, seesmic, ustream, streaming, ,

Some people can suffer distractions more than others, where as others can be total immune from the usual distractions.

Ever had a morning where you seem to be not getting any thing done. You check email, forums, feeds and twitter (the Loop). The phone rings, then you answer some new email. IM fires up, you deal with that. The doorbell rings a courier turns up and the distractions just go on and on. Sure you are scheduling tasks, and getting on with the short ones, but still it feels like you are spinning your wheels. You seem to have all your task management working just fine. So what is the problem? Maybe its all the minor distractions just getting to you.

So can we bring order to the distracting chaos of our lives.

Most of these work based distractions are of our own making; from the false premise that we can in fact multi-task . Truth be know we don’t really multi-task, just rapidly shift between like projects with short linear bouts of concentration.

For the most part getting your focus back can be difficult for some. So here is a handy list:

• Close all non essential applications

  Such as twitter clients, email client, RSS reader, Forum (tabs) on your browser, yes that includes Facebook. This will effectively remove the loop. Also ensure you don’t have shortcuts to these applications or web sites within easy reach. Make it a chore to find them in the menu system. This way you can catch yourself when you go to check them.

• Set Rewards

  Give yourself a mini review when you complete a long task or several hours. You could use checking the loop as a reward.

• Delegate

  If you can delegate or use an answering service for all incoming cold phone calls do so.

• Process Mail first

  Don’t start all those some jobs until you have processed the bulk of your incoming email. Export the mail items or print them out whatever, just ensure you turn email off.

• Music

  Get the music cranking, I find the faster beats with a reasonable bpm is good for giving focus. For design work I can listen to anything, But for coding or general writing I need to have instrumental music, basically anything without vocals.

• Clear the desk

  Remove any distracting clutter (I’m one to talk). Allow yourself to focus only at the task a hand.

• Close the Door

  If you can close the door and make it known you are not to be disturbed.

Well that’s it, you are bound to have a few more?

Well a little over a week ago AWIA pulled off another event miracle, Ideas4. It organised an evening seminar for the local web industry in little under 2 weeks. As usual it all came together nicely on the night with over 100 people attending and even a special blow-in guest from the US, who just happened to be in town.

Jordan Brock kindly videoed the two talks presented by Lisa and Rachel, encoded and uploaded them to Vimeo.

Rachel Cook, despite being 8 month pregnant, amused us all with tales of Silicon Valley and web 2.0 startups.

Ideas 4 - Rachel Cook at Ideas4 on Vimeo.

Where as Lisa Herrod on her birthday trekked all the way from the East Coast to present on holistic usability and accessibility with Usability More Than Skin Deep, Proving that checklist help but real people should be part of the equation.

Ideas 4 - Lisa Herrod at Ideas4 on Vimeo.

Thanks go to both Rachel and Lisa. You really made for an awesome evening.

Yesterday was Australia Day, a day when we celebrate Australia and it people of many cultures, bringing together the different communities. At the end of the day I was enjoying the warm sun on my back and the moist sand of the beach underfoot, when I got to thinking about how you would bring people together in the Web Industry.

Problem is we tend to see the industry as one solid mass. In reality it’s made up on many disjointed community groups.

The Groups

Groups that are spread over business types and their functionality in the industry. They can operate at times in almost pockets of isolation. These groups often operate without know what the others are doing at all.

So we have various groups:

• Developers coding in various languages from python to .net and beyond.
• Consultants working in the accessibility and usability areas
• Web designers, the front end developers
• Web design companies from sole operators to large firms
• Information Architects
• Web Producers and project managers
• Content writers
• SEO and marketing specialists
• Government in-house web teams
• Corporate in-house web teams
• Educators teaching the web

You even get groups in the same area just not talking or communicating with each other (mainly due to petty personality issues). This problem of social pocketing within young industries is not new. The IT industry still suffers from it. It’s a world wide problem. Some communities have found solutions, like the one in Sussex, England. But they are far from perfect.

The Problem

Now lets consider each of these groups usually has a community that is in communications with it’s members. Be that a mailing list, RSS feed, forum, IRC, social networking group or paper based newsletter (yes really) . Via these means the people that want to communicate with their like peers can. We can’t help those that don’t make the effort to communicate with others, so we’ll just ignore those people for now.

Communication between these community groups can be a problem. Myles Eftos touched on this a while back from the events coordination angle; his suggestion of a centralised events calender, pulling information from other sites and RSS feeds is a good idea in principle.

However the main problem with most of these groups, I have found over the years, is that they aren’t using the latest and greatest in communications technology for various reasons. So this presents a problem.

Linking the Communities

How do we unite all these separate groups. True some do intercommunicate when they have common members but what of the others. How to overcome the pockets of isolation within the web industry.

Well thinking on this one simple way to interconnect communications with these groups is via a central registry of there generic inquiry email details or a listing of forums, email mailing lists details. The principle here is keep it simple.

Okay you still have to go to the site and collect the email details etc, but at least it would be simple method of intercommunication. One place to find the information. Maybe a central email mailing list of the major contacts would help extend this, but some groups don’t have email contacts.

Now if only we can get all those lost people together, like the ones in govt agencies and the corporate sector that don’t have any common community groups. Guess that’s another problem.

What do you think, good idea or just or a waste of words?

Technorati Tags: isolation, fragmentation, community, groups, web+industry, communication, inter-communication

It’s been a few days now since the release by Chris Wilson on the official Internet Explorer Blog and the subsequent follow up by Eric Meyer and Aaron Gustafson (as requested) showing support for and explaining in detail the introduction of the X-UA-Compatible Meta switch. Now the post to read here is the Microsoft one. That is primary to the whole deal, it explains somewhat why this was done.

What’s it all about.

Basically from Internet Explorer 8 there will be the provision of a meta tag. If you want to use the features of the rendering engine for IE 8 you have to insert this meta tag. If you don’t well your page will render as if it’s been developed for IE 7 (that’s the fall back).

Hence we are ending up with version control flagging for each web page. So you have to opt in to get the features like better standards support and the like from IE 8 and beyond by resetting this meta tag each time the browser changes.

So in web speak..
If DOC TYPE and X-UA-Compatible Meta Tag
Render as indicated by meta tag
elseif DOC TYPE
Render as IE 7 (Standards Mode)
else
Render in Quriks Mode
endif

The Emotional Roller Coaster

I haven’t commented on this, besides on twitter and a few blogs around tracks. I have been basically letting my opinions settle.

• When I first read about this I was outraged. “What are we going back to the dark days of the web”.
• Then I was considering the footprint size of the resultant application, mainly due to different rendering engines, the patching problems and hack attack holes.
• Like John Resig I was also considering the impact on JavaScript having to determine the rendering engine for the page.
• Then there was the possible future death of web standards, the removal of the future proofing concept. That had very concerned.
• Finally I ask who is going to control the registry of User Agent Acronyms that will be used? Will that be a free for all?

It was getting a little strange, a good number of the web community was lining up on opposite sides like Jeffery Zeldman and then Jeremy Keith, If Andy Clark had an operational blog I’m sure we would have been his 2 cents pence worth. Did they know something they are not telling use. Anger was subsiding to confusion. What was really happening?

Browser Wars - Not.

Well we know that the WaSP-Microsoft Task Force have been working on this for a while. The question does come up if this has so many problems, what where the alternatives, like. Is it possible that they where so bad, or that Microsoft just put a gun to the task force’s head and said “We are doing it with you or without you.” - I really hope this was not the case. I guess we will never know with a cloak of NDA around it all.

With the roll out of IE7, we in the web industry think it was a blessing (better than IE6 anyway). Not so in the Microsoft camp.

They are in the real world you see. They have clients with developers that don’t care about standards, about correct CSS, about cross browser compatibility. Yes they do exist. They are a majority, we are the minority. Yes we are very vocal, but we are small.

But IE 7 broke the corporate applications; it broke the implementations of ActiveX and Jscript The bringing of ActiveX and JScripting into line with standards compliance maybe a little harder than Microsoft wants to admit. It cost time and money to fix.

So if you major corporate customers complain about your implementation methods and demanding that the default playing field remains static. What are you going to do. Well if you want to stay in business, you are going to listen to these paying customers.

Then we have the web industry, do they in general pay for Microsoft products (beyond the operating systems) in general no.

So we have annoyed paying customers and on the other hand a minority of free loading noisy upstarts. This is business, money talks in this case. Web Standards lose to business reality. The opt-in stands so the corporate sector can opt-out by default.

As Lachlan Hardy says:

Microsoft doesn’t tell you it’s going to do something of this scale unless it means it.

What people are going to do

I’m consider it’s going to get to the point where you are sick of putting the meta tag in, so you just sniff the browser header, and insert the correct meta tag as the page renders via a backend script.

You have other problems as well like when you go to render generated content as expected in the current version of CSS, but you have to check first that page is going to be rendering as say IE8 otherwise its going to only render as IE7. So then IE8 is really IE7..okay? That is going to get very confusing. Maybe its a move to force people to stagnate.

Is it Good?

Is it going to be helpful? Well, yes, may make life for debugging a little easier and testing as well, as you can stimulate multiple browsers with one version of Internet Explorer. However this doesn’t take into account (at this stage) sub-versions of the render engine. .

Ian Hixie is recommending we all opt-out or put “IE7″ in the meta tag, forcing the rendering engine to IE7. Nice, so the web stagnates. This is just what we don’t need at the moment.

We need to keep Microsoft at the table and educate like crazy these corporate sector developer cowboys. We need to get out there and get mentoring. We need to turn the corporate sector around.

It’s just one line of code but I can still see blood on the browsers over this one. Microsoft has been force to cave to the demands of their own monster.

Technorati Tags: Internet+explorer, IE8, IE7, meta-tag, X-UA-Compatible, meta-switch, web-standards, CSS

Technorati Tags: accessibility, usability, user+experience, startups, web2.0, experts, ideas4, ideas, Western+Australia, AWIA, Port80, Perth

Technorati Tags: JQuery, javascript, Framework, review, Learning+JQuery, Wed+development, Jonathan+Chatter, Karl+Swedberg

We have all had it. You know the scenario, the base concept design is due today, you have just started. Nothing is inspiring you, it’s all the old same old thing. The blank page looks back at you mockingly, laughing.

You sit there trying to visual something, anything new, all you get is nothing, an emptiness that is as vast as the canvas you are working on. The clock numbers slip by endlessly, click click. it too is laughing at you, it knows about the deadline.

There is a feeling of dread that is knotting up deep within the pit of your stomach. A spike of panic and urgency, your heart is racing, you are sweating, you must get the design done today!

The waking nightmare begins. A fifty foot wall is enclosing around you, blocking out the creativity, sapping your light, your muse. The world has become just a mundane darkening grey uncreative void. Panic!

So what do I do when the web designers block comes down:

• Stop.

  First off stop. put the blank paper, Photoshop canvas, or page aside, close it even. Review what you have in terms of input (logos, colours etc). Rotate them, invert them, flip them, color inverse them, zoom in. Look for themes, patterns or make up a colour pallet if one is not supplied.

• Getup, walk away.

  This is a simple solution. Calm down, to do this get up walk away from your desk, go outside, get a drink. go for walk down the street. Take in the sights, smells, the sounds away from your work environment. Try to mentally reset yourself, clear your head. Some of my best ideas come in checkout queues or just driving around. However, not a good solution if time is extremely short.

• Visit other web sites.

  Go have a look at some inspirational designs, maybe go look at the work of you favourite designer. Or visit some CSS galleries. Good ideas sure, but remember take only inspiration, no one likes a thief.

• Start. Just do it.

  If you have the wireframe, fine you have a starting point. Even if you don’t, start with a rough sketch. Doodle, throw a series of thumbnails together. Just get in there and put pencil to paper, draw, play. You may see something in the mess on your page that will leap frog you into the design process. It maybe a curve, a colour, an outline, a font, I don’t have a magic bullet on this one, but you will often see a way forward if you have something to look at and mentally churn over.

• Set a deadline.

  Sometimes it’s not “designer block, it’s just procrastination. So putting a deadline in place, this does help you kick start yourself. Not much good if you are already on a deadline, eh.

• Change media

  Go watch a movie, music video or play some console games. Often you will get inspiration from a different media. But my personal mega block breaker is music. Turn on any music. I find it best to try and find some music for the theme you are looking for, let the music entrance you and feel the vibe, let your imagination be inspired by the music. Different people design various themes to certain music types. This is such a detailed topic that I’m not going to cover it all here. Mind you some people tell me music only helps them work and does not inspire them.

• Mood Boards

  You are using mood boards? Well maybe not on the small jobs. But they do help on the larger ones to set the tone of the design. To set the theme, the colours, fonts and style of the visualisation. They are quick, they are dirty and they are great starting leverage point in the design process.

• Word play

  Take random words and content themes from the site, mix these up, select a few randomly, look at the emotion and design these words reflect and start from there.

• Take it to the extreme

  Okay you have a design, but it’s just lame, and boring, it just says that you have no creativity at all. Well why don’t you try and go for the extreme opposite of what you want. Make it even more boring and dull. Break the rules on the colour pallet. Make some of the elements way too big, break out of the design mold, go crazy. It may just lead you to a new concept away from the every day mundane design you already have.

• Build a Reference library

  I know these are out of favour, and so old school. But a physical collection of design inspirational books, magazines, photos can be a really godsend when you have a creative block. It gets you away from the computer, and you start to look a things on different level. Allowing your subconscious to take hold and wander aimlessly. I’ll often find just one picture or drawing that will inspire a complete web site design.

Besides the resulting burnout aspect what do you do to overcome designer block.

Technorati Tags: designer+block, creative, Block, designer, creative+block, inspiration, self+help, web+design

Technorati Tags: Cameron+Moll, mobile+web+design, mobile+web, Mobile+design, web+design, web+standards, Mobile+browsers, book+review, review

Another year is here, a little bit older. And let’s start it off with another meme. Friend and fellow (now ex) Perth person Ruth Ellison has tagged me on the “8 things you didn’t know about me” meme, and this one has strict formating rules and things like that. How strange!

The rules :

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. List EIGHT random facts about yourself.
3. Tag EIGHT people at the end of your post and list their names.
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged.

So what are the juicy facts about me:

1. I have a passion for ancient and medieval Irish/ Welsh Celtic history and culture. I’m not talking about that neo-paganism clap trap stemming from the Victorian Golden Dawn, but the real historical record and academic discussion on the topic.
2. Was doing inline speed skating, until march last year when I slammed into a rink wall (with helmet on) head first after a slide out. As a result I was in a neck brace for a few weeks. Needless to say I had to give up the competitive element of the sport (Doctors orders), not that it’s generally dangerous, I was just unlucky. I still recreational skate, but it’s not the same.
3. I was born in England. But I have never seen snow. Given that I hate the cold I don’t think I will be seeing it soon.
4. Back in the dark days before there was the web I used to code in dBaseIII and IV.
5. I have a degree in Organic Chemistry. Yes that has nothing to do with web design, usability and information architecture does it. But ‘m a great believer that all a degree does is teach you how to learn.
6. I’m waiting for the “moment” when you suddenly have to get serious and “grow up”, I seem to have missed it.
7. I collect and read comic books, not the superhero ones, I was involved with the Australia Comic book industry for a short time way back when.
8. I have given up trying to find time to read fiction novels. Although I do have a passion for good cthulhu fiction.

So I am going to tag the following, some have already been tagged, but not responded, so they get a double dose of tag prompting:

1. Nathanael Boehm - Nat has been tagged before but has not responded.
2. Sarah Issacson - Sarah is a good friend who seems to and fallen off the Blogosphere, I blame Travian.
3. Laurel Papworth - Laurel is a social networking guru, time for her to step up.
4. Ben Winter-Giles - I met Ben at Web Directions South. Ben is one smart guy, Who doesn’t blog enough!
5. Jesse Rodgers - Jesse is a Twitter contact, UI person from University of Waterloo, time we pushed this internationally.
6. Sue Waters - Not that Sue needs an excuse to blog.
7. Teresa Watts - Teresa is an extremely talented designer. When I grow up I want to be able to design like she does.
8. John Johnston - JJ seems to have been to busy to blog. Well this will fix that.

So that’s it. Not tagged but want to join in, go for it.

Technorati Tags: meme, random+facts, Gary+Barber

I don’t usually get political on this blog. But an issue was been sneaked by the Australia public by the Federal Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy. Nice timing new year’s eve, when most people are not media focused.

Today it was reported on the ABC - Conroy announces mandatory internet filters to protect children. This is from the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.

Senator Conroy says it will be mandatory for all internet service providers to provide clean feeds, or ISP filtering, to houses and schools that are free of pornography and inappropriate material.

Okay the labor party did talk about this in their usual pre-election promises list. Most people expected it to be lip service only.

Filtering of the Internet is a very hard thing to do. If Stephen Conroy has found a way to remove the kiddy porn, then I’m behind him 100% percent on that issue. No question. I give no quarter with pedophiles.

However my main concern here is where does this stop. You will note use of “inappropriate material”. What is “inappropriate material” is that research on breast cancer or some such, is it political protests against China.

While you think on that, a number of questions for Conroy:

1. Like Duncan Riley I have a concern as to who is going to pay for this service, will it be forced (legisilated) or be slid in as telecommunications policy for ISP’s forcing a flow on in pricing structures?
2. What happens if you don’t sign up for the opt-in filtered feed, are we going to be automatically branded as pedophiles because we required an unfiltered internet to do our jobs?
3. How’s it going to be administered, who determines what is appropriate? Sounds like this is going to be at Ministerial whim. This is not a good idea. Ministers often have purely emotional responses on this type of thing, especially inexperienced ones, there is just no accountability. Does Conroy and his advisor’s really know what is appropriate and not. Worse yet the list of what is appropriate maybe administered directly by the Australian Communications and Media Authority. Not going to take much to add to the list is it. Add a few fringe religious groups, maybe some sites protesting against a government policy.
4. That brings me to the point, who is going to provide the list of sites to filter? ACMA, the public, the Australian Federal Police. Or are they going to use a blanket keyword filter?

As Kathryn Greenhill has pointed out this is as expected from an inexperienced Minister policy on the run. There is no official media release or any details of the policy of how it will work and how it will be controlled on the relevant government web sites.

So I ask this: “Conroy show us the detail of this proposal, not the spin”.

Want to ask him directly, here is his feedback form. Want to show support against this proposal in its current form there is a facebook group.

Funny how the Minister for the Digital Economy is not using the digital media to tell us of all this, that speaks volumes.

Technorati Tags: censorship, filtering, inappropriate+material, telecommunications, internet, ACMA, Stephen+Conroy, Australia

With all the discussion, earlier in the month, on the way the W3C working groups are made up and operate, the influence of the browser and software producers on the web industry. We really have to consider do we have this around the right way. There has been calls for removal of the software producers from the working groups. Now I’m not going to debate that topic here, I think we have all done this to death at the moment.

Change it or not

However I think it’s time that the professional and semi-professional associations that represent the web industry in terms of implementers (designers and developers) should start to leverage their members around the world and join forces to join (lobby) the W3C and stop relying on invited experts to put their case.

At present the W3C is receiving membership (lobbyists) from anyone that can afford it. This is mostly software developers. The ground level of the Industry is only really represented by the invited experts on the various working groups. These positions are usually on a goodwill (unpaid) basis. These people being very talented and articulate communicators in their fields.

But at the end of the day they are not primarily lobbyists by profession they are designers and developers. Their time is dedicated to their jobs and businesses not lobbying for the web industry.

We bitch about web standards, we complain about lack of government understanding or our profession. But where are our lobbyists in this arena. Well we don’t have any! Sure there are the other professional computer or Internet industry lobbyists, but these are not primarily focused on  the web industry. They tend to cater for the needs of IT managers and the ISP industry respectively.

What about WaSP you say. Again it’s made up of volunteers. I’m not saying scrap WaSP, or the current W3C working group structure, but that we need to channel the effort through a group of key paid professional lobbyists as well as the current efforts. And again both these groups aren’t  going to help in the area of government lobbying. We have to meet the other industries face to face in the same arena.

Stepping it up

It’s time that the industry as a whole stepped up. To put the views of its web professionals on the table. The best way we can do this is get into the W3C as members (lobbyist) and also lobby government directly.

Now this is not going to require a lot of ground level organisation. All that’s going to be needed is the support (financial is good if possible) of a core lobby group (foundation) to represent the web industry.

There are hundreds of professional web industry associations around the world, such as AWIA and WIPA, for example. Now we don’t have to get them to merge together at all. They all serve their defined local purpose. But they all can’t afford to employ a lobbyist to lobby any level of government let alone bodies such as the W3C. So what is so wrong with a centralised foundation supported by the web professional associations to employ said lobbyists? Each association contributes what it can to the foundation.

Other professional industries are doing it, why not the web industry.

What can we do? Well doing nothing is the worst thing. Even if you don’t agree, discussion is good, blog about it, podcast about it, discuss it on Seesmic. Join your local web professional association, talk to their committee about it. Shout it from the roof tops. Email others, Twitter about it or write forum posts about it.

Time has come for a little more action and not just words. We all need to get out there in some small way and help our web communities.

Just get the idea out there. The industry needs to grow up. We need professional lobbyists.

Technorati Tags: web+industry, standards, web+standards, browser+wars, professionalism, associations, call+to+action, lobbying, lobbyists, government, w3c

It’s an interesting point you want to organise a professional event; do you go with the traditional conference / seminar format or the more relaxed popular unconference (aka barcamp).

Well having attended and been involved with organisational aspects of both it is clear they have their places. There are a number of points that you have to consider before committing to one over the other.

Organisation

• Unconference - It’s very relaxed, informal, embrace it, attendees control the proceedings.
• Conference - Very formal. The attendees will have little if any say in proceedings.

Speakers

• Unconference - No control over the speakers, but you can try and suggest that certain people you want to speak attend.
• Conference - You are going to have to hunt and call for speakers. You are going to have to know who is good and who is not. Who is repeating an old topic and who is new fresh blood. This is where you need to have industry expertise.

The Venue

• Unconference - More than likely will not be holding the event in a fancy hotel or conference facilities. Its usually (unless you have lots of sponsorship) going to be at an educational institution or any free hall you can get. However note this may influence sponsors or attendees unless you have a proven track record. I know it’s a chicken and an egg thing.
• Conference - The venue will be judged on the quality of the event by your audience. The local bowls club is just not going to look that impressive or professional to an end of the line corporate manager approving their staff to attend.

Equipment

• Unconference - You will need to provide audio and visual equipment. But that can usually be arranged with the attendees before the event.
• Conference - Depends on the venue, for the most part basic audio and visual equipment will be provided in the room hire, but its a good idea to check.

Programming

• Unconference - Allow for an open timetable. Some people will want to speak and will come prepared, if it’s too constrictive on timetabling, constrains may stop this.
• Conference - You will live and die by the program listing you produce pre conference. Get the wrong speaker mix and you will loose audience segments.

Timing

• Unconference - They are usually on the weekends. This will attract a distinct audience. Usually the more independent, career focused or those looking to break into this industry. Don’t run the event conflicting with any major seasonal event (like the Christmas shopping rush).
• Conference - Seeing you are looking at a corporate audience; depending on the industry, the event should be during the working week. That way you will attract the 9 to 5 working professionals who wants to attend, but only if the boss is paying and they get a day off work. Sad but true these people will make up most or your corporate audience. That’s not to say you won’t get any independents. Don’t run the event conflicting with any major seasonal or sporting events relating to the industry cultural demographic.

Food

• Unconference - Food will usually be cheap or free, if you provide it at all, no fancy lunches and dinners.
• Conference - Coffee, lunch, food in general, ensure they are the highest quality you can afford. Expect to be locked into a list of preferred suppliers by the venue, and this will restrict and price as well. Again it’s image. However you also really need to be aware of the dietary requirements of you attendees especially if they are paying for the event.

Marketing

• Unconference - No marketing budget. You really have to work with word of mouth and leverage you network to get the word out about the event. If you are not good at this then this maybe a problem.
• Conference - You need a marketing budget. Adverts in the related industry information sources (print, news, web, blogs), discounts for professional organisations. Getting the word out is critical. Still you should also leverage your network as well. You need as many people as you can get to pay up and attend.

Sponsors and Attendance Fees

• Unconference - There is little outlay cost involved, especially if you can get a few local sponsors to support the project then these will offset your costs. Attendance fee is usually free or very low cost.
• Conference - You only have two income streams, from paying attendees and sponsorship. So sponsorship is critical, you have to prove to the sponsor that they are going to get a defined ROI (Return on Investment) for their dollar value. Is it going to be worth them spending money with your conference event or the one down the road. Be prepare for large sponsors to sometimes demand control of the speaker list and often reject speakers from rival vendors. Whether you allow them this control must be stated very clearly in the sponsorship agreement.

Presentation Style

• Unconference - The presentation style is different than expected. It’s not just a straight presentation delivery. It’s more an open discussion with a moderator up front.
• Conference - The audience will not expect discussion, they will expect it to be all one way. So barcamp style audience interaction just isn’t going to happen without a fair degree of work from the speaker.

Other Services

• Unconference - Podcasting or vidcasting the event will rely on the time and technical skills of the attendees. Good point on this none of the vidcast of my presentations have every surfaced (besides the rockin’ webjam - update - yes it is alive and well).
• Conference - Everything has a price, you want a service it will cost, unless you can get friends to assist. There maybe very little in terms of volunteers available, this varies from industry to industry

Networking

• Unconference / Conference - Same rule applies here. Allow for networking time. Any event can tend to restrict and separate the audience sometimes and detract from allowing people to network between, during and into the evening.

As you can see in someways they are directly opposite easy other in terms of delivery of information and structure. It is important that you brand you event a conference or unconference or camp distinctly. Making it a conference style but part camp style is going to send confusing messages to your audience. That said given the popularity and effectiveness of the Barcamp model is there a place for a hybrid of the two?

Technorati Tags: conference, barcamp, camp, unconference, how+to

At this time of year we all get a few days to get off endless carnival ride of our industry, this allows us time to reflect. Or simply unwind and contemplate the old navel lint. It’s at times like this you ask yourself why you really got into the Web Industry in the first place.

Now I’m not talking about because you need to provide or earn a little cash for yourself and your nearest and dearest.  No I’m going beyond the material domain. We all have to earn a living in one shape or another, so let’s just put that aside.

When I was thinking on this, my immediate response was that I work in the industry because of its dynamic ever-changing nature. Not a week goes by when there has not been some change, some enhancement in development or design. This is good, but then this is not really a reason “why”  but a consequence of working in the industry. The real question comes down to what is the core reason you would work in the web industry if you didn’t have any of these considerations. What is your inner passion.

For me personally it’s a desire create, to produce something; something of value. Basically it comes down to a desire to improve the human condition, if only in a small way. What about you? Why are you really working in this industry?

When you think of it, web standards compliance, the web methodology, tools, or the developmental platform you are using, does it really matter. Sure they help a little in the process but do they really provide the final product, are they really critical to it all? I would say not. Yes that’s right all these things are not that important in the final creative process.

Is all this bickering and discussion on the W3C or web standards important in the reality of the design process and for the industry to continue? Well not really, the industry will go on. Creative people will continue to be creative. We will adopt various methods and techniques that we need to implement the designs we are painting in our minds.

The web standards community needs the web industry; not that the web industry needs web standards to survive. We have to remember that at the end of the day.

I’m here to create, how about you?

Technorati Tags: web+standards, web+industry, creativity, web+design, w3c, create

Silly season is here: Internet Explorer 8 passes the Acid2 test, Andy Clarke wants the W3C CSS working group to rethink, Forbes releases the 25 top Web Celebrities for 2008. Yeap you can tell things are a little crazy, must be something in the air in relation to the season this time of year. Okay some of these items have a very serious side (IE8 and the CSS working group). But it is a little amazing how all these important issues and others tend to launch themselves at us just as we are preparing for a much earned break with family and friends.

Vote Vote Vote!

Just as important is the voting for the top Australian Top 20 Web Celebrities for 2008. Now this is a very serious vote, no journos making up list around the lunch table here. So go on go vote, or nominate someone. You still here, go vote…

Another Social Networking Site

Also this week a very serious highly sophisticated social networking site TOSN was launched. I highly recommend that you go over and sign up for the beta. Oh and watch the video too.

Merry Christmas to all (if you celebrate or not), roll on the silly season.

Technorati Tags: sns, social+networking, IE8, CSS+working+group, CSSWG, Xmas, christmas, web+celebrities, TOSN, W3C

Get the impression these days that we may have just overstep the mark with the number of social networking sites that are appearing. Now I’m not going out looking for them, but it just seems that they are appearing at the rate of about 2-3 a day at the moment.

Who has time to check them out, setup the account, workout if it’s worth investing time in importing your social network into site by the old hunt and gather the names method; I would never trust them to go collect the information for me. I usually bookmark them and move on. So every now and again (maybe 1 in 20) I will signup.

Now Spock is such a social networking site. I signed up with Spock in early beta and I did what I usually do, secure your alias and let the site account just languish until I’m ready to have to good look at the site.

The Concern

Fast forward about 6 months. I came back to Spock I see that I’m now a mass murdering, famous Hollywood movie producer that freelances in web design. So my name is like Joe Smith, a very common one. You see Spock is collecting all the information it can from scraping other social networking site, blogs, media releases, news sites and the like. This means that Spock builds a profile on you, sometime with a picture supplied by others before you have ever signed up with the site.

As you can image this can lead to sorts of concerns. Frankly I’m not the first on the web community to raise questions over Spock as Myles Eftos discusses. This concern is not that new either, as ValleyWag (August 2007) thinks Spock is creepy too.

It’s not just the aggregation of the publicly available information on you into one place that makes this site spooky. It’s the verification, or lack there of. This is like an automated Wikipedia gone mad. Try and add your aliases to your name, it will not let you. Say you don’t want your real picture online, but use an alternative graphic, it will be deleted. It seems that the community can vote up a picture, a comment, a news article that is totally false. What recourse does a person have have about this spread of misinformation. It seems not much if they are out voted. They have your information, but you don’t have the control.

Have We Lost Our Way

What the hell is going on here. isn’t this meant to be about the correct information overcoming the false crap that is usually spun. It seems Spock is not out to do that. So what happens if you want your account deleted, or you want the information removed. Has anyone considered that. Doesn’t seem a way to do that either.

Nice idea, but despite or maybe because of the long list of prestigious staff this site it is just missing the marker. Who is controlling the data they are collecting? Should we trust them? What are they really doing with it.

I have had to setup an account and clarify and ensure that my digital identity was intact. Why, well I live in a digital world where the truth can easily be misinformation. Did I really want to setup the account, no not really, I’m getting a little tired of new sites with very little economic consideration for their own livelihood, that on sell the audience demographic information.

But, where is all this going. Are we over stepping the mark, okay you can say it’s all publicly available, and if you put yourself on the web you have to expect it and all that. But we all have distinct lines in the sand.

Should this type of site be allowed to aggregate the material without our permission and have others add to the information as well. It’s an ethics thing a suppose, just because we can do it should we do it. For me it’s just way to spooky.

This is one time I don’t want it to live long and prosper.

Technorati Tags: spock, social+network, online+community, web2.0, ethics, morals, private+information, public+information

At the moment everyone in the Australian web industry is saying the same thing. They are more than busy, they are completely flatout. Often over worked and trying their best to maintain their usual quality of work with the limited resources that are available. In a way being overworked is like being under extreme stress. But as humans we are very easy to adapt to changes in environmental conditions so you may not be even aware you are overworked, so here is a checklist:

1. Your family and friends have got so used to not having you around, you feel like a stranger when you are around them.
2. Closing yourself off from your friends and associates, stopping all contact, ignoring emails, phone calls from them etc.
3. You have a spiralling compulsion to work longer and longer hours, trying to squeeze the last few minutes from the day.
4. Your level of caffeine and stimulates has increased to the point that it disrupts your sleep, what little that you are getting.
5. You are putting aside relaxation or regular exercise in favour of getting the job done, you feel compelled to finish the tasks at hand.
6. You are finding that you are getting really irate at mundane things. Like when you have to wait for anything, queuing at the checkout, in traffic or waiting for a late scheduled meeting.
7. General forgetfulness of anything that is not work related.
8. Missing family special events, such as partner’s work events, or children’s school or major sporting events in favour of work.
9. Long term sickness, like a cold or flu you just can’t shake.
10. You get to the point that you can’t tell what day it is. You avoid drawing the blinds as you don’t want to look at the beautiful day outside as it’s going to distract you.

Well if some of these sound familiar maybe it’s time to look at what and why you doing it all, lets stop the burnout. Remember life it just too short to waste it on endless work. enjoy it. It will be over before you know it.

Technorati Tags: burnout, overwork, overstressed, business+problems, stress, work+levels, web+business, web+industry

This week on twitter Molly Holzschlag live tweeted the conversation with Bill Gates at Mix n’ Mash not that the twitter feed really had any important information in it. Anyway Molly did put the seemingly sanitised highlights of the conversation on her blog, thanks for pushing the points Molly.

The topic centred around Web Standards (recommendations for the purists) and IE8 development and the resultant loss of transparency that the development team used to have. Bet you have noticed that too, been very quite on the IE8 development news front hasn’t it (update:  yes silence does usually mean we commonly think inaction even if MS says it isn’t sitting on its hands). So like us all Molly and others are smelling the old Microsoft rat.

Some interesting points from all this; did we get a promise for IE8 in 2008, or not. It would be good to at least see the early beta in 2008, the idea would be the full release. I’m not holding my breath on this one.

As expected Bill Gates is no longer really in control of the day to day events, and isn’t really even across the product lines. Or maybe he is just dodging the question by dumping the answer back to someone else. Is Bill Gates becoming just a Microsoft figurehead.

Maybe Microsoft are going back to there old ways, waiting for a glossy event, MIX08, before rolling out teasers on IE8. This is typical of the thinking of someone locked in the old school marketing concepts.

The problem becomes that the Microsoft team may get it. But we have seen that before, remember MS Outlook 2007 and it’s email HTML standards support. When one section overrides another at Microsoft. Is there a danger that with IE8 having a new engine that they will use the MS-Word engine and slide back into the dark ages with IE8.

All that really is required is for IE8 to finally catch up with the rest of the browser community (FireFox, Opera, Safari) and support CSS to its full standard recommendation. Sure have you can have Microsoft “exclusive” rules and tags; But first off support the base line of CSS like everyone else.

You know this conversation in a way remind me of the thinly disguised apology from Chris Wilson at Web Directions South 2007. Yes we all know Microsoft has screwed up in the past. But if others can implement the standards why can’t Microsoft. Or are they just playing lip service to it all, and IE7 was just a blip on the radar.

What do you think? Will IE8 happen in 2008 or not?

Technorati Tags: ie8, microsoft, billgates, web+standards, wds07, internet+explorer, browsers, ie

A few months back I reported that Three had restricted access through their network (3netaccess) to certain web sites that are normally available via other providers (like twitter). As expected I lodged a support call with this problem.

Well I’m happy to report that about three months later, Three have finally fixed the problem so now we should be getting unrestricted access on both the 3netaccess and 3services networks.

The one point of interest was the level of support service that Three offered. They phoned with an update to the support issue at least twice a week, keeping me updated with the progress each time.

Now the fact that they had nothing new to add, did make this process a bit tedious. However that aside, ten out of ten for keeping me informed and feeling like I was important.

Telstra, Optus, you could learn a lot about customer service from Three.

Technorati Tags: three, merlinxu870, wifi, Planet3, wireless+access, wireless, customer+service, customer+support

OpenID is a really great idea. It allows you have a single point of login combined with the ease of the use of a multiple profile based identity. I’m a bit of a supporter of OpenID and it’s universal adoption. But maybe some aren’t as fully committed as expected.

Now you would think that the sites promoting that they are using OpenID would be really making a moderate attempt to see it presented as an alternative to the standard login account creation process.

Well for a good percentage I would say yes, they are. But there are a number of high profile sites that have lead me to create this list. I’m not going to name who is doing what wrong. But you maybe able to guess if you know the sites concerned.

Suggestions on How to Present OpenID

1. Make it easy to find the field you have to put your existing OpenID URL in. Don’t go hide it on the login page with a small link that requires javascript to be activated to see it. Put it up front on the sign up page, and not in really small font that can barely be read.
2. Use the standardised OpenID logo near the OpenID field, this helps with people that know what it’s all about.
3. Provide an explanation as to what OpenID is. Or at least a link to the list of OpenID providers.
4. Focus on testing your implementation of OpenID with all the major providers. People will come to your site with existing OpenIDs.
5. Consider the loyal users of your site that have an existing login. Ensure your system allows for these users. Such that they can use OpenID to login to their existing account as well.
6. For Providers, that had other services before becoming a OpenID providers. You are not the centre of the universe and people are going to want to use other OpenID providers and are going to want to login using someone else’s OpenID service besides yours to use the functionality you provided before you started using OpenID. They are usually loyal users, consider not alienating. Give them the freedom to use other OpenID providers to login to your site.
7. People setup multiple profiles on their OpenID, they want the information in the nominated profile taken up and used in their profile on your site and don’t want to have to re-key the same information all the time.
8. When using emails with confirmation URLs on a regular basis it’s a good idea to keep them simple and allow an auto login that doesn’t use the same long multiple variable URL as this will cause reconfirmation each time with the OpenID provider.

There just a few points, I know it’s early days with OpenID, but people let’s just apply a few of the usability skills we all have to the implementation of OpenID as well.

Technorati Tags: openid, usability, providers, problems, implementation, socialnetworking