I never managed to get around to a timely update of the fun I had Webstock. It was, as I’d hoped, a most excellent, inspiring, re-energising and fun conference – just like the first. The crew behind Webstock managed something that isn’t as common as we hope it to be in NZ.. which was to prove it wasn’t a fluke and pull it off for a second time. Well done guys, it’s no easy feat.
My highlights from the conference:
- As I said before Webstock, I couldn’t wait to see Kathy Sierra again. While she did have a hard act to follow, thanks to Damian Conway, it was great to hear her talk again about creating passionate users. Our apps do have aspergers and I’ve been thinking ever since how to include a WTF button in Ponoko. Nobody is passionate about something they suck at.
- Michael Lopp’s presentations on managing design and primal software development were great. Key takeaway for me was the “pony meeting”. Enjoyed talking shit about the iPhone outside Vintage with him at 2am too…
- Damian Conway was freaking awesome, if you only watch one Webstock video (when they are uploaded) it should be this one.
- Tom Coates – “Twitter is a service that displays error messages on the Internet”, “You can never have too much data”.
- Kelly Goto’s getting unstuck was incredibly thought provoking.
My feedback for the conference is fairly similar to some other bits I’ve seen around the place. A ponder at why LukeW and Michael Lopp or Amy Hoy and Dan Cederholm were streamed while Molly Holzschlag wasn’t. No need to mention the Wifi either 
Only two more years till the next one, or is it?
Comments
There is one response to ‘Stocked
Friday, 7th March 2008 8:52 am
John
Thanks for the writeup. I won’t mention wifi beyond the fact that we felt very let down by it, and the failure has been noticed at higher levels at WCC. So one hopes it will be addressed!
Re streaming some speakers and not others. Yeah, in retrospect we may have done differently, but it was a constant juggling act, especially as we were confirming speakers at different times, and trying to fit everyone into a schedule. On the other hand, it’s really interesting to see how some people *loved* a particular speaker and others really didn’t, and vice versa.
Mike