Webvisions debrief

So, when I said in my last post (on Thursday) that I would be posting more details about the conference that night, what I really meant is that I would be posting more details in three or four days when my brain finally finished decompressing.

Seriously, though, I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get this post (and my pictures!) up. Yesterday Mom said to me, “Erin, you better post something on your blog soon! People are going to think you died or something.” If even Mom is worried about my readers, you know it’s serious.

The trip to Portland and the Webvisions conference were both great fun. We did end up driving my beloved car up to P-town, although Philip drove it both ways and within Portland we mostly used the MAX (more on that later) for transportation, so I never actually did any big-city driving. Oh well. I’m sure I will someday. (Also: I don’t know if they will ever read this, but I just want to give a big “THANKS!” to Laura and her grandparents for providing us with a place to stay. Your generosity was greatly appreciated.)

Rather than trying to spew every detail of the experience, which would be boring to write and to read, I have grouped the anecdotes and tidbits that I am especially anxious to share with you into a few sensible categories. Also, check out my Flickr set of photos from the trip.

Things in general of note:

• Riding the MAX light-rail train. Excepting Disneyland rides, before Thursday I had never been on any sort of train or subway or metro of any stripe. So I was very excited when Philip and I left my car at the Park and Ride station Thursday morning and descended into the subterranean (but open-air) loading area for the MAX. Very few other people there seemed to share my excitement—while I stood there clutching my camera case and brimming with anticipation, with “I can’t believe I’m waiting for a train!” written all over my face, everyone else’s faces seemed to be saying things more like, “I can’t believe that instead of sleeping I am waiting for the train.” Their loss. (And the train ride did not disappoint—it was quite fun to stand there hanging on to the bright yellow bars and watch Portland fly by the window.)
• Photography opportunities. Although initially I thought this would be a great opportunity to get photos of various Webstars during their talks, I quickly became disenchanted with that idea—not only because the lighting in those rooms SUCKED for pictures, but also because I felt self conscious and annoying every time the “Ker-chink!” of my shutter would interrupt the relative stillness of the room. Don’t get me wrong, I love my dSLR, but its noisy shutter does not allow it to be quite as unobtrusive as my parents’ Powershot. Nevertheless, I got several good photos of speakers—but mostly I ended up taking pictures of the convention center itself. In particular, there was a beautiful shaft of sunlight from the glass ceiling spilling over the walls of the circular lobby where we met. And after every session, this light would be casting different, awesome-looking shadows on the wall. So during each break I would scurry out to the lobby, pull out my camera, and… take pictures of the wall.
• Walking around Portland/Dinner at the Macaroni Grill. Thursday night Laura, the girl we were staying with, and Hannah, another friend of Philip and Laura’s, met Philip and I at the convention center. As the four of us walked/rode the MAX to dinner, I had the opportunity for some quick street photography… which was fun. We ate at the Macaroni Grill, which had really good food and was also where I did two of the dorkiest things I have ever done in my entire life. Dorky thing number one: I ducked into the restroom when we got there so I could wash my hands before we ate, and I happened to notice that not only was the bathroom GORGEOUS, but it had a GORGEOUS full length wood-framed mirror. And then, of course, it occurred to me that I wanted a picture of my outfit that day, so… I did what any sensible person would do. I walked back out into the restaurant, retrieved my camera from our table, walked BACK through the restaurant, and BACK into the bathroom, where I proceeded to take a picture. Of myself. In the gorgeous wood-framed full-length mirror. And there were even poor, unsuspecting people still washing their hands at the sink, probably wondering what kind of narcissisistic freak show they were watching. Nothing to see here, people, move along! It’s not a narcissist, it’s just a blogger. Dorky thing number two: One fun feature of the Macaroni Grill was the paper covering they spread over the table—a ready canvas for the crayons they gave us. So I drew what I always draw when I am randomly presented with a writing implement and paper: an eye. And then a face. And them some hair, until the floating female head that graces so many of my school notes and sketchbook pages sat there on the table. But I couldn’t leave it at that… so, just before we left, I added a speech bubble above her head with the words “LYLIUM.ORG ROCKS!” boldly written within. And you know what’s even dorkier than the fact that I did that in the first place? The fact that I truly hope someone came here because of that.

Favorite Talks:

There were a lot of great speakers at this event, so keep in mind that this list is not by any means comprehensive. These are just the talks that I personally found particularly interesting/informative/entertaining. It’s probably no mistake that they all featured the two people I was most looking forward to seeing.

• Practical Business Blogging Panel: DL Byron, Matt Haughey, Andy Baio, and Derek Powazek talked about the ins and outs of blogging, both personal and professional, and all four of them had interesting and informative things to say about the pros and cons of business blogs and the ways to make all kinds of blogs more effective. One solid piece of advice that I came away with: To have a successful blog, even if you are a business, you can’t fake your content. Blogging for blogging’s sake won’t get you anywhere if you aren’t genuine in the ideas and stories you put forth.
• The New Community: How Decentralized Conversation Empowers Individuals while Creating Community: Derek Powazek was not kidding when he said his talk on Thursday night had the longest title of any talk at the conference. Even with all those words, however, I went into this talk not exactly sure what it was all about or whether I would be all that interested it. Turns out, not only is Derek a great photographer and writer, but he’s a great speaker, too. His enthusiasm for his subject and clear articulation of his ideas really made this an interesting session. I thought his analogy of sites like Flickr being “company towns” was particularly apt.
• Bulletproof Web Design: Dan Cederholm is not only one of my favorite web designers, but his book, Bulletproof Web Design, was very helpful to me. I really feel like it gave me a coherent picture of the issues involved in creating solid, accessible, degradable web design that I did not have before. And while his presentation contained only a small slice of the useful information found in his book, he was a good speaker and had obviously put a lot of work into making his presentation informative and entertaining. It did not seem like the book and the presentation were just copies of each other—each one had something useful to add to the other.
• Design Panel: Dan Cederholm, Keith Robinson, Mike Davidson, and Bryan Veloso led probably my favorite session of the whole conference. Not only did they all have great stuff to say about web design today (the good, the bad, and the ugly), but the four of them had a great rapport and were genuinely funny at times. I really enjoyed their panel and feel like I learned a lot from it, too.

Also, I met these people:

• As I mentioned before, Derek Powazek was one of the people I was most looking forward to seeing at Webvisions. (Also, just for the record, I am never going to try to pronounce his last name out loud again. When he announced his name at the conference, it was so different from the way I had pictured pronouncing it that I had to do a double take to realize what he even said.) After seeing him talk at the Practical Business Blogging Panel, as Philip and I were about to leave the room, I decided that I could not pass up the opportunity to be able to say that I met Derek Powazek. So I walked up and introduced myself, and I’m very glad that I did! I only talked to him for a moment but he was very nice and personable, and seemed to genuinely appreciate my compliments on his photoblog. Not only that, but he asked where my website was, so I gave him a business card! He gave me one of his (very nicely designed) business cards and a JPG Magazine sticker. Nice to meet you, Derek.
• Dan Cederholm was the other person I was really looking forward to seeing. Philip and I talked to Dan for few minutes while I got my copy of Bulletproof Web Design signed; he was very nice, and seemed like a very down-to-earth guy. He said it still felt strange to him that he was signing books. I didn’t try to give Dan a business card, though… I wasn’t sure that I wanted the bulletproof guru looking at my website, lol. But he may be here anyway, since I am linking to him. I guess that’s okay, as long as he doesn’t look too hard into the cobbled-together corners! It was nice to meet you, Dan. Thanks again for your great book.
• The way I met Dan Rubin was kind of a funny coincidence—I actually did not even know who he was before this conference. During one of the sessions after the Design Panel on Friday I was checking my email on Philip’s laptop. I got a notification from Flickr that someone named Dan Rubin had just added me as a contact—and, sure enough when I visited flickr I saw that he had left this comment on the photo of my business card mentioning that he had seen me at the Design Panel. I thought that was kind of odd, but after looking at his photostream to see what he looked like, I went searching for him at the next break. I did find him, and we exchanged business cards (his was way cooler than mine ) and chatted about the merits of homeschooling. It turns out that he found my flickr photostream through a comment I left on one of Dan Cederholm’s photos, and realized that he had seen me earlier! I guess you’re bound to have things like that happen when you put that many people using the internet into that small of a space. Anyway, it was a pleasure to meet you, Dan!
• In case you don’t remember, Nick Finck, one of the directors of Webvisions, left a comment on my original post about coming to the conference. I actually saw him in almost every session, although I didn’t realize it till later, because he came sneaking in to take photos of all the speakers. I remember noticing him because I was jealous that he could get away with taking photos better than I could. I didn’t realize till almost the end of the second day that he was the person who had commented on my blog—and I didn’t get a chance to talk to him until the very end of the conference! But I finally did catch him, and I’m glad, because he was very nice. We talked about blogging and Technorati and swapped business cards as well; he had a nice Blue Flavor one. It was great to meet you, Nick! Thanks again for the comment.
• I also got to meet Elliot Swan, a fellow teenage blogger and web designer whose website I discovered a few months ago. I think I may have frightened him off, however, because after I enthusiastically recognized and greeted him on the first day, it seemed a little bit like he was avoiding me the rest of the time. Perhaps I am just imagining that though… lol. Anyhow, it was fun meeting you, Elliot! I hope we see each other again sometime.
• And then I met Kyle. This is actually one of my favorite “met someone” stories in this list, because of how random and unexpected it was. As Philip, Laura, Hannah and I were riding the MAX home Thursday night, I pulled out my camera to grab a few pictures of the train interior and the scenery going by. But right as I started taking pictures, I noticed a teenage-looking boy move a little bit closer to me, staring at my camera. “Hmmmm,” I thought, “That’s kind of strange…” but before I could even finish thinking that thought, this boy had already explained, “Sorry! I just really like cameras.” I could not argue with the sincerity of that statement. Also, he had a cool T-shirt on… it had a string of code on it that I did not recognize but which Philip did, making it clear that Kyle, like us, was a computer person. So we got to talking with him about the conference we were in town for, and eventually he said, “So, I have to ask: do you have a website?” … and the clouds parted and a light shown down from heaven as I smiled and pulled a golden ticket from my camera bag. Well, maybe not… but I did feel HIGHLY justified as I forked over one of my new business cards, since that is EXACTLY the kind of occasion for which I had them printed. I’m glad we ran into you, Kyle! I hope you stick around to read more.

*PHEW! * If anyone actually read all the way through all of that, I am now officially in love with you. Not really, but I do realize that this has been an excruciatingly long post, and I appreciate anyone who stuck with me through the whole thing. (I appreciate you if you didn’t, too. )

So, that’s all for Webvisions. It was great fun. I don’t know if I will go next year or not, but that is a bridge to cross when I come to it.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite photos from the trip; this is a look up at the giant pendulum swinging in the lobby of the convention center:

Posted on Tuesday, July 25th, 2006 at 1:03 am.
Belongs with: Happening Things, Web Things.
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