My Thoughts on <head> Conference 2008
Last weekend, a special event took place: The first edition of <head> Conference. In case you haven't heard of it yet - <head> 2008 was a web conference that took place on the web, or as the organizers kept pointing out, everywhere.
Paul Boeg "live" at <head> Conference
There were some local venues, so called "hubs", were attendees could gather to follow the talks. Apart from that, people joined the conference online - both attendees and speakers: Instead of making you come to the web conference, let's make the web conference come to you.
The three-day conference covered a broad range of topics, such as community building, information graphics, etc. but the focus was clearly on web design and (frontend) development.
Content is King: The Speakers
The talks were surprisingly good with virtually no exception. I attended about 15 talks and there were just one or two downfalls. I especially enjoyed the contributions by Richard Rutter, Paul Boag and Robert L. Peters.
Another speaker I found worth mentioning in particular was Rafi Haladjian of Violet (makers of the Nabaztag) who explained Violet's idea of ubiquitous computing. Of course, he was advertising his company's upcoming product mir:ror but it sounded really interesting. Maybe I'll write some more on that later.
Attending a conference on the web.
Due to the lack of a conference hub in Germany, I attended the conference online. Actually, given the small number of hubs, I suppose that's what most attendees did. Staying at home while being able to attend a conference at the same time had it's benefits but also some drawbacks:
(+) No need to travel: Attending an event from home is convenient, environmentally friendly and inexpensive: No hotels, no trains, no flights etc.
(+) Good value for money: The conference tickets were amazingly cheap - just 100 bucks for 3 days and 40 speakers
(+) Recordings available: All talks were being recorded and will be made available on the web. I haven't seen any of the recordings yet, though.
(-) No (real) socializing: For me, using a chat-room on the web is by far no replacement for real socializing and talking shop. Apart from that, discussions during and after the talks worked surprisingly well: No flaming or the like, everyone was in pretty good mood.
(-) The by far biggest drawback: Being at home while attending a conference (at night, on a weekend!) sucks. It was much harder than I had imagined. There were all kinds of distractions, including family, friends, beer etc. that kept me from focusing, and explaining your mates over and over what you are doing at home in front of your computer on Saturday night is kind of tedious.
All things considered, <head> Conference 2008 was a pleasant experience. Kudos to Aral Balkan and everyone else who made it happen. I hope for a 2009 edition.
↑ back to the top