I’m not sure how they convince these people to travel half way around the world to come and talk to us, but good on them for doing it.
Actually, that’s not true at all. It’s obvious how they do it. They treat the speakers like rock stars, fuss over seemingly little details, and go the extra mile to create a great experience for everybody who attends – right down to the t-shirts, bags and name tags. It works! Even people who attend lots of conferences seem to love it.
I spent today at Kelly Goto’s workshop on Interaction Design at Webstock. Kelly is a consummate presenter and came with as much material and hands-on exercise as anybody could possibly cram into one day.
I can never be reminded enough that getting outside your own head is soooo important when you develop for the web.
… a stellar job with the conference badges, materials and a gorgeous canvas bag (As Kathy Sierra said, ’stroke the bag’). If you get a chance to speak or attend next year, don’t miss it. They’ll treat you so well you won’t want to leave.
One thing that really came out as a common thread was the need for focus on people in all of the wonderful stuff we create for the web. … What Webstock means to us is that we’ll be taking a lot of what was discussed and seeing how we can fold the ideas, techniques, and technologies into our core product. We’re very excited and can’t wait to apply what we’ve learned!
