SXSW Day 4 notes


networking, networking! allen mendelsohn.
(Photo: Another great shot from Nancy)

Long day of panels today, a blur of some many pieces that make up my life and job. Some thoughts/notes so far;

  • Canadian’s need to talk more amongst themselves, in our industry. Calling myself out first — I’m guilty.
  • Hiring talented people in Canada and the UK is tough for everyone.
  • One of the keywords so far has seemed to be “sincerity”; sincere action/reaction/transparency/following through/honesty/reputation/ etc.
  • When building; Remember to always pace yourself properly with your clients; example: Films sites have different pace of milestones than a social networking site.
  • Don’t over-talk it.
  • Few want MS Silverlight to succeed even though they see the power in it. More segmentation of the web.
  • I found a good Montreal mexican resto by talking to someone here. “Le Petit Coin Mexican” On Jean-Talk/Iberville
  • The following are all over-hyped and should be avoided until they (or if they) ever deliver (Taken from the PreLoaded panel) : Papervision, Erlang, Flex, Pair Programming, Silverlight

SXSW Day 3 – Keynote

sxsw keynote

(photo from the wired article)

“This one time..
at Facebook camp…
We helped people communicate cleary.”

— stevey jotting notes to allen about the keynote as it happened

Never before have I seen such a bad interview to a group of peers. The full blame for this falls on Sarah Lacy. It was her job to pull this of with the notoriously difficult interviewee, Zuckerberg.

Read all the gory details at Wired (and probably 1000 other sites by this point)
http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/03/sxsw-mark-zucke.html (thanks nancy for the link)

Otherwise the day was extremely positive; more on that later. Parties to go hit now!

Day 2 of SXSW


the talented mr. mendelsohn
(Photo: Another great shot from Nancy)

The highlight of my day was the core conversation that Allen and Eric lead; “Core Conversation: Growing Pains: Your Web Company’s Getting BIG”.

Allen had thought that it might be 10, maybe 15 people sitting around talking. To all our shock; it was 100+ !!

The discussion went off so well that I’m already voting it my highlight of SXSW 2008.

Excellent work Mr. Mendelsohn.

SXSW Day 1


texas shadows
(Photo: Great shot from Nancy)

Planes and air travel has this smell, something between brand new plastic garbage bags; roasting coffee / almonds and disinfecting santizers. It gets into my nose, onto my hands, it permeates everything I carry. I can feel it building as I walk into the airport and it grows as the flight carries me on.

Thankfully Austin is full of better smells that will erase those.

We’re off to SXSW; somewhere above the great lakes at this point (writing this on the plane). I’m getting excited, Allen has already started up with his siganture “rally the team woooops which should top 25 by end of day”, Gary is ready for some texas BBQ and lots of design discussion, and Nancy… we’re afraid she’s gonna burst she’s so excited!

Other Montréalers on our flight are Patrick Tanguay (from Station C which he tells me is doing very well – I must go check it out one day) along with his girlfriend and buddy. Also Rachel, Jim and Jess from Urban Handed Works who are going down for the whole SXSW experience (Interactive, film and music).

My own thoughts on SXSW

It really offers me a chance to get inspired, as I’ve posted and talked about before, but almost as important; as a chance to clear my head for a couple days while remaining completely ‘in-gear’ for Plank.

I’m already seeing one or two problems that have been fuzzy in the past; now in a clearer light.

Really looking forward to Allen’s core conversations tomorrow; along with the other couple panels which kick things off.

SXSW starts tomorrow

SXSW 2008

Heading off to Austin, TX tomorrow AM — Should be a hell of a time! I’ll post as much as I can from there.

So far I have the following panels lined up in my schedule;

http://2008.sxsw.com/interactive/programming/panels_schedule/

Saturday, March 8th

  • 10:00 am · Filching Design: When the Shoe Fits
  • 11:30 am · Core Conversation: Growing Pains: Your Web Company’s Getting BIG
  • 2:00 pm · Opening Remarks with Henry Jenkins and Steven Johnson
  • 3:30 pm · 10 Things We’ve Learned at 37signals
    or
  • 3:30 pm · Blood, Sweat, and Fear: Great Design Hurts
  • 5:00 pm · A General Theory of Creative Relativity

Sunday, March 9th

  • 10:00 am · Wireframing in a Web 2.0 World
  • 11:30 am – Social Strategies For Revolutionaries
  • 1:15 pm · Beautiful Loser film (SXSW Film)
    or
  • 2:00 pm · Keynote Interview with Mark Zuckerberg
  • 3:30 pm · The 10 Commandments of Nice
  • 5:00 pm · SEO 3.0: Optimizing Search & Social for 2008 and Beyond

Monday, March 10th

  • 10:00 am · Blame Canada: 7 Ways We’re Ahead in New Media
  • 11:30 am · Pimp My Film’s Website
  • 2:00 pm · Monday Keynote: Frank Warren
  • 3:30 pm · Design Eye for South By
  • 5:00 pm · Pimp My Non Profit – Real Non-Profits Kicking Ass with Online Technology

Tuesday, March 11th

  • 10:00 am · Content Management System Roundup
  • 11:30 am · A Conversation with: Michael Eisner
  • 2:00 pm · Secrets of JavaScript Libraries
  • 3:30 pm · Getting There Faster By Using Open Code
  • 5:00 pm · Taking Over the World: the Flickr Way

Ping me if you’re there also and we’ll have a beer.

A glass on my desk

Rocks in a glass

I have always thought of this as my first insight in a GTD approach to work; It’s worth going back and reading “Time Management: The Pickle Jar Theory” from 2002,

“Each of us has many large priorities in our life, represented by the large rocks. We also have things which we enjoy doing, such as the pebbles. We have other things we have to do, like the sand. And finally, we have things that simply clutter up our lives and get in everywhere: water.” — Time Management: The Pickle Jar Theory

Read the full article

Allen @ SXSW this year

Allen, one of my fellow Plankers, is leading one of the Core Conversations at SXSW this year. Along with his co-lead, Eric Smith, they’ll be speaking about the growing pains that happen when going from small web firm to a medium sized one.

There is also a great bio of allen up which I love,

“Allen couldn’t hold a job before he found his home at Plank. In order of appearance: MBA, advertising executive, modem company marketing manager, two law degrees, legal practice, near nervous breakdown from said legal practice, return to the binary world. At least all of those experiences have enabled him to obtain the title of VP Marketing, Business Development, Legal Affairs, Corporate Affairs, and Bartending. Try fitting that on a business card.”

Come sit and talk to Allen and Eric if your at SXSW next month; Saturday Morning, March 8th between 11:30 am – 12:30 pm in Room Ballroom E.

Congrats to UOVO

UOVO

Our good friends over in Scandinavia, UOVO, have won a grant to produce some more of their amazing art/games. I can’t think of a better talented group of people that this could go to.

UOVO has created quite a few pieces of art/animation with Plank, all of which has been stunning.

You might recognize the style, as Luke drew the Stevey with Antlers at the top of this page, which I LOVE.

“Nordic Game Program decided recently that our very own little web-based game idea, Willinilli was good enough to support with a good deal of cash.

Now we can start producing some serious inhouse work.

We are delighted to be given the support to produce something we are burning to make; a project that for us will mean putting the best we have to offer into a product we think will both entertain and enlighten kids”

Go get ’em guys!

http://uovo.dk/blog/?p=141

SXSW is less than 2 months away

SXSW 2008

It’s coming up fast.

We’re all very excited; this year Plank will be sending 4 people to Austin, Texas to fill their brains with the latest in web development practice, theory, future and some great offshoots.

Been checking out the panels and have seen quite a few that look intriguing; “10 Tips for Managing a Creative Environment”, “Africa 2.0: Affecting Change Using Technology” (with Kofi Annan!), “Design Control in a Digital World: Getting It and Losing It”, “Everyone’s A Design Critic “, “Pimp My Non Profit — Real Non-Profits Kicking Ass with Online Technology”, “Respect! (Jeffrey Zeldman)”, “Scope Creep and Other Villains”, “Taking Over the World: the Flickr Way”, “Unconventional Collaboration: Tips for Local and Remote Teams”, “Wireframing in a Web 2.0 World” and tons more!

Our own Allen Mendelshon will be presenting in one of the Core Conversations, a new format for this year, a walk-up-round-table approach with one topic leader and co-presenter.

Allen will be presenting on “Business / Management — Growing Pains: Your Web Company’s Getting BIG“. Should be fun! Word has it that’s gotten himself a great co-presenter lined up. Keep your eye out for it. We’ll know more about time/place as the event date comes closer.

Know of any panel’s which we must attend? Let me know.

Visit the SXSW IA 2008 site

Warren and the Plank site

Warren begins blogging

I’m happy to announce that Warren has finally started blogging on the Plank site. It might seem small, but Warren is a smart guy who is the foundation of Plank. He’s no nonsense and we expect he’ll have some great stuff to say.

While I’m really proud of what all of us at Plank have accomplished over the past 9 years, I worry that we seriously suffer from one big bad fault: modesty. So, you must be asking yourself how can someone so proud be so modest? It may be the bass player in me but I’ve always felt like if we just plod along and try to do the best work possible everyone will just figure it out. They’ll get it and need to work with us.

Obviously we have had some attention over the years thanks to some high-profile clients but I / we have never actively sought attention or a public profile. Over all these years I think we offhandedly sent out two press releases and emailed a few design portals as an experiment. It worked but we all quickly burrowed back into our work. We got back into the habit of letting people discover us when they manage to.

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