Webstock Mini - 22 April in Wellington
We've got a great line-up for this Webstock Mini and are really looking forward to carrying on the momentum from the February conference. In addition to speakers, Roger Dennis and Roger Hudson, we've got a half-baked.com challenge between the CodeBlacks team and a Silicon Welly All-Stars team, and if that's not enough, Wellington's International Ukelele Orchestra will round off the evening with their own brand of entertainment.
When and where
We'll be holding this mini at the Illot theatre in the Wellington Town Hall on Tuesday 22 April.| Time | Speaker | Title |
|---|---|---|
| 4:30pm - 5:00pm | Registration | |
| 5:00pm - 5:45pm | Roger Dennis | Harnessing the lunatic fringe: Innovating by looking beyond the traditional boundaries |
| 5:45pm - 6:30pm | Roger Hudson | Information Classification and Retrieval: The Folks and their Tags |
| 6:30pm - 6:40pm | Halfbaked.com | Preparation |
| 6:40pm - 7:15pm | Drinks, nibbles and networking | |
| 7:15pm - 7:30pm | Halfbaked.com | CodeBlacks vs Silicon Welly challenge |
| 7:30pm - 8:15pm | Wellington International Ukelele Orchestra |
The cost for the event is $75 (GST inc) and this includes speakers, entertainment, food and drink. And if you also register for an Andy Budd or Tantek Çelik workshop, entry to this Webstock Mini is included as part of that price. Bookings can be made here.
Roger Dennis
Roger is passionate about innovation. Although based in Christchurch, he is an Associate of Innovaro, Europes leading strategic innovation consultancy. He has worked on numerous innovation projects around the world in a range of different industries. Last year he spent most of his time working on a programme with the Shell GameChanger team in The Hague, running a Technology Futures programme to understand the impact of technology on society in 20 years time. His blog is at www.rogerdennis.com/ideaport
Harnessing the lunatic fringe: Innovating by looking beyond the traditional boundaries.
For many organisations, innovation usually means looking harder down the microscope at what you already know, rather than scanning at the horizon with a telescope. However examining the very fringes of your industry, and industries outside your sector is vital for detecting weak signals that can not only uncover new business opportunities, but kill your business. So who are on the fringes, what is their impact and what does this mean for you?
Roger Hudson
Roger Hudson is a website usability and accessibility specialist. He has provided Internet advice to the corporate and government sector and conducted numerous usability and accessibility evaluations with a wide range of web users including those with disabilities.
Information Classification and Retrieval: The Folks and their Tags
Following the success of sites like 'Flickr', 'del.icio.us' and 'Furl', there has been growing interest in the process of social bookmarking. When compared to traditional taxonomies, folksonomies have the potential to give users greater input and control over how web content is classified. But, will this result in sites that are easier to use? This session will look at the evolution of information retrieval systems, including the use of facets to clasify web content, and will consider the role of tagging and tag clouds in helping users find website content that satisfies their interests or needs.
Halfbaked.com challenge
So, what's a halfbaked.com challenge? The idea is taken from events held last year. It'll break down like this:
Act 1: the audience will yell out ~50 random words
Act 2: each team chooses 2 words + ".com"
Act 3: each team has ~30 min to prep their BlankBlank.com biz plan - (biz plan = product idea, revenue model, marketing plan, logo, tagline)
Act 4: each team does a 5 minute pitch on their product to a VC panel
Act 5: the audience votes on who did the best job and we all celebrate the insanity
The competing teams will be the New Zealand CodeBlacks and a Silicon Welly All-Star team, members to be announced soon. Hard to know who'll be the favourite at this stage, but certainly the Silicon Welly team will need to bring their A-game against the battle-hardened CodeBlacks.
And the VC panel? The teams will have to impress Sam Morgan, Rowan Simpson and Rod Drury, all no doubt wearing their best VC t-shirts.
Webstock, of course, owns all and every intellectual property devised during the competition and takes a huge and arbitrary cut of any and all funding deals cut :)
Wellington International Ukelele Orchestra
Pure aural pleasure. Music to soothe the savage geek.
