We’ll be there for one-to-one advice at the Portfolio Clinic from 5 to 7pm. It’s a great opportunity for those looking to carve a career in digital design to get expert advice and feedback on their portfolio. presentations. Along with some of Brightons other leading creative agencies.

If you are coming we look forward to seeing you there, there maybe some freebies too, shh!

UPDATE:
Here’s Wired Sussex’s review of the event on their blog.

A personal favourite of Chinwag’s regular events in London’s west end. Looking into the crystal ball to predict how we will all use the internet, and our habits around on-line life in 2013.

The evening started off with Sam Michel in a santa hat, announcing a few formalities. With the host Richard Titus summarising whether the long tail will be applicable in 2009 where free services will survive against paid services. This subject wasn’t really covered in detail, and not even any brands like ‘Google’ were mentioned as the analysis or predictions on future technologies were not that detailed.

The three main topics from the speakers were:

1. Mobile
2. Data portability / Interoperability
3. Personalised usage of the web

List of Speakers:

Jonathan Mitchener – Futurologist and Principal Research Scientist, Devices, BT
Simon Collister – Head of Digital – Consumer Practice, Weber Shandwick
Jamie Coomber – Head of Digital Strategy, Profero
Neville Hobson – Communicator; Blogger; Podcaster, NevilleHobson.com
Richard Titus – Head of User Experience, BBC Future Media and Technology
Ewan MacLeod – Editor, mobileindustryreview.com

MOBILE – The first question came onto the subject of mobile – how do you expect to use mobile?

“A gadget in your pocket that can tell you anything you want to know”
” Be able to send flowers in 3 clicks from your handset”
“Check which friends are online”

“The mobile is the first internet experience for many handset owners in India. There is a deeper penetration of the internet using mobile than desktop in this country”.

Fact: 306 Million mobile users in India 2008, with 610 million in 2012.

The desire’s of people accessing mobile are increasing, but can the infrastructure cope with this demand? Need to be sure before the ‘flood gates’ open and the innovation increases.

The subject of mobile Commerce came up as the last point of this topic which could have gone on all night, and at some points looked like it was going to.

“Can we buy something with a phone in 2013, like a can of coke? and can we use it like a prepaid oyster card?”

Will we have monetary payment using mobile, everyone nodded and the general consensus was a big ‘yes please’.

Monetary payment is happening in Africa, where farmers are being innovative by using phone as a way of not only improving their lives, but doing business. Farmers can text a service which will reply back with the current grain price on market day. Farmers can choose when to sell, when the price is right.

Women in Africa are communicating with other businesses such as butchers, they can text ’save me some meat, I am arriving to pick it up today’.

So it looks like in what we thought we developing nations, that mobile is changing the lives of these people that we can’t believe.

EASE OF USE

‘If you make it easy for people to use, they will use it’

Whether a web tool or application is open source or not isn’t seen as a factor as to whether you use it or not. People on the street won’t care what it is. It’s down to usability – whether they can use it or not.

DATA PORTABILITY

We are waiting for data portability, where you can join a new social network and take your friends with you. ‘By 2013, we bloody well hope this can happen’. Will Google’s Opensocial solve this? We don’t know yet.

It’s not a technology thing, we just just need to get companies to speak and work with each other. ‘That’s the hardest part of it’. ‘Standards yet to be agreed’.

PERSONALISED ‘ON DEMAND’ USAGE

In 2013 we will be strongly focused on ‘bringing real life conversations together’, feel that we do this already but processes to do this will obviously get ’smarter’.

With all this new technology we will ‘pay money’ not to be connected, where places guarantee there is no wireless broadband.

To be able to turn off the noise, and be able to filter out the good stuff, content you require.

The work / life integration – How do we deal with life on the web and using applications that cross the work / life mix. These boundaries are becoming more blurred on a daily basis.

The topic of ‘constant partial attention’ was described as being a factor for internet usage, where you are able to consume and tap into different avenues of your online life.

eg: facebook – friends, plaxo – address book, and linked.com – your business contacts.

Leading to be able to make sensible choices on who we can connect with and when.

All in all, some thought provoking comments from a very diverse panel. A good night, some nice people met and a good chance to catch up with what is happening in the big smoke.

Merry Christmas Chinwagger’s!

Why? Not just because they are great fun, but also very valuable tools in training, learning emerging internet technologies and trends.

Getting to the cutting edge of Internet leaders minds is what it is all about, and chatting up close and personal with other exciting innovators on the web.

Being able to spend each day in a group with in-depth focus on a many topics, allowing you to discuss your problems, share solutions, and make lasting connections with your peers and future colleagues.

Extra special keywords for these events: Usability, Development, Marketing and Networking

dConstruct 2008 Designing the social web. 3rd-5th September, Brighton, UK.

‘It’s a grass-roots conference that gathers some of the brightest minds in the industry from around the world’

Head The Singularity 2008 conference has now been renamed ‘Head’, 24th-26th October, Online (worldwide).

‘It’s a seminal web event intended to form a time capsule or snapshot of Web ’08 . The conference will have experts in WebDesign & Blogging, Artists, 3D & Flash Developers, Gods of JavaScript & MarkUps, Hackers, Entrepreneurs; conducting sessions on various topics.’

Adaptive Path UX Intensive, October 13-16 2008, Copenhagen.

‘Workshop series examines the four key elements that contribute to a successful interactive experience: Design Strategy, Design Research, Interaction Design and Information Architecture. Workshops are led by Adaptive Path’s team of experts, including: Dan Saffer,
Chiara Fox, Brandon Schauer and
Todd Wilkens’.

Search Marketing Expo – SMX London,
4-5 November 2008, London.

‘2 days of sessions featuring the latest intelligence on cutting-edge SEO and PPC tactics and best practices from the brightest minds in search marketing’

The User Experience 2008 Conference, 16-21 November 2008, Amsterdam.

‘These guys bring together structured disciplines and apply them to improving the user experience while considering business needs — something we should all do everyday’.
Testimonial from Jason McKenzie, PricewaterhouseCoopers

Adaptive Path MX, 1-3 March 2009, San Francisco.

‘MX brings thought leaders from IDEO, Google, The Mayo Clinic, Cisco, and many others, to show you what it takes to get great experiences out into the world’.

SXSW Interactive, March 13-17, 2009, Austin, Texas.

‘The SXSW Interactive Festival features five days of exciting panel content and amazing parties. Attracting digital creatives as well as visionary technology entrepreneurs, the event celebrates the best minds and the brightest personalities of emerging technology’.

All we can say is that it’s very exciting to be part of this and the future of the internet, we hope to meet you there. If you have any questions about what these events mean to how we work contact us.

• Say Hello and speak to everyone, there may be some important people to meet, standing right next to you. Ask them ‘where are they from’ then you will be well on your way to exchanging contact details.
• Ditch the freebies, from your welcome bag – if you are lucky enough to get a platinum pass you will collect three bags, don’t worry there are recycling points in the conference centre for plastic paper and aluminium.
• Go to all the parties – Its a lot of fun, soak up the Texan atmosphere, make new contacts and drink the free beer
• Be Polite – You may just be sitting next to your all time web hero, or your next big client.

Place you need to visit during you stay for SxSw:

• Supermarket – Wholefoods – The only vegetables and organic food you will get in Texas
• Cafe – Halcyon – Great vibe and nice food
• Hotel – The Hampton Inn Downtown – Do yourself a favour, stay here – it’s worth it
• Bar – Shakespeares Pub – Home of the Great British booze-up
  
• Drink – Shiner Bock and Lone Star beer – Most of it free at the parties you will get into with your pass
• Food – Tex mex, Mexican and BBQ – Meat, meat and lots of meat! – Probably the only thing you will spend money on is for lunches – Enjoy the Texan portions

Here are the sort of people you can meet at SxSw Interactive (in fact we met them all at SxSw08):

• Web Celebrities – Scobleizer, Kevin Rose (Digg), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Garrett Camp (Stumbleupon), iJustine
• News Reporters – Chris Valance (BBC), Jemina Kiss (Guardian), Business Week, Mashable
• Rock Stars – Moby – Yes, the bald headed DJ/Artist
• Start ups – Cal Henderson – Flickr
• Founders and Developers – Pownce and Digg
• The Big Players – Mozilla, Opera, Kyte and Google staff
• Web Creators – W3C members
• And even people from right here in Brighton!

Best of the Conference – Reccommended

• Best seminar – Probably any of the Keynotes, and the odder the title of the seminar the more intriguing it becomes.
• Best speaker - Probably realising that the blogger you admire is as clever in real life as well!
• Best experience – Get along to the Star of Texas 17th annual rodeo, and back at SxSw obviously building up networking skills at and around the conference.

You cannot really predict what is going to happen to you during your time at SxSw, but whatever you do just go with it, embrace the feeling and enjoy every minute. Otherwise you may regret turning down that outing that turned into a VIP pass to the party of the year!

Oh and get some rest before arriving, on the Sunday night at SxSw 25 parties took place.

Just one look at the events calendar is enough to make any person nervous, with the amount of world renowned speakers and also some homegrown talent going over to share knowledge, hang out with friends and make new aquaintances.

How to maximise everyones time at SxSW08

This is how I can see the event working. After the initial check in for flight, and at the hotel. All delegates are required to register. This will be a good initial check to get a vibe for just how friendly and excitable everyone will be about the week ahead. Hopefully to spot some of the Brightoninan’s that will also be there.

The main key ingredients for the week will be networking and marketing. Covering all corners of the event, as well as the all important after party’s sponsored by some big brands, Google, MicroHoo!..

An exciting part of any conference it’s not knowing what’s going to be the topic of the day to discuss with other delegates, from inside the seminars to what is happening outside with respect to popular technology and business developments posted on techcrunch.

As with any early adopters for web apps and spending a lot of time generally online you should have an general opinion or most things happening online, and be ready to contribute to conversations with people who either have little knowledge to actual innovators on the topics.

Above all, I think having fun with the web is still the main thing to remember at SxSw, dont take the web too seriously, the world will not end if you get a 404 page error.

Personally, I’m looking forward to how many connections we can all make at the event, and I’m looking forward to contributing to the blogosphere whilst in Austin..

Jim Callender

The evening had 5 speakers, all from different areas of the digital market place.

• Marketing - Jon Bains – Co-Founder, Lateral
• User experience – Nikki Barton – Creative Director, CIMEX
• Agencies - Andy Hobsbawm – European Chairman, Agency.com & Co-Founder, Green Thing
• Advertising - Guy Phillipson – CEO, Internet Advertising Bureau
• Media Planner – Pete Robins – Co-Founder, Agenda21

A marketing look in the future for digital media. Based on what brand is all about rather than the bling of web 2.0.

User Experience:

• The mouse will be dead in 2012 > Replaced by multi-touch and gesture interfaces.
• A beginning of a new era of interface design.
• The primary device of the internet in 2012 will be the Mobile device

The mobile will be the first device for internet usage.

How do we do this in a limited number of pixel resolution, and with whose standards? The challenge still lays ahead.

Agency Perspective:

• Using more analytics for recommending next steps for client in digital campaigns, based on data and information captured.
• Traditional agencies will be catching up with digital competitors, due to cross marketing and outsourcing projects to experts in the field. This will lead to the marketing companies who choose to do this becoming more digitally motive.
• Digital PR will be BIG, lots of requests from clients in 2008. Digital PR versus Press, no compeition who will win this one.

Information is cheap, it’s becoming easier to be more creative

The Concordia staff and volunteers were able to do presentations and catch up on each others work and also look towards their future based on their current strategies. Callender Creates were also on hand to act as consultants for future ecommerce work planned for the Concordia web site.

Fiona Taylor, Manager, said “we appreciate that the team at Callender Creates are very busy, so we value the time and the opportunity to use the meeting room for our ‘away day’ meeting’.

Concordia offers more than 1600 international volunteer projects every year, in the UK and overseas.

We are glad we assist with valuable charities like this, furthermore, this isn’t our only work with Charities.

Jim Callender is also of to Nepal at the end of August to lead 8 British Volunteers in Nepal, on behalf of BTCV.

The project has meant to run the last 3 years, but with terrorist activity leading to low bookings, Jim can finally head off and do some worthwhile international conservation work.

The work itself is very practical attracting all ages and ability of volunteers. Partnership with a local host will enable us to take on habitat management tasks, such as reforrestation, tree planting and possibly community work such as teaching at local Nepalese schools.

Watch this space for post-trip photos, and warm wishes to all involved.

Vodafone: 191 million customer worldwide, and member of w3c mobile working group

Do users want the web on their mobile?

The answer is yes, due to:

1. The largest uptake of mobile web content in africa and developing countries
2. Creation of worldwide mobile web initiative

Leading to the mobile web best practices – which focus on the following:

1. designing for one web
2. rely on web standards
3. stay away from known hazards
4. be cautious of device implications
5. optimise navigation
6. check graphics and colors
7. keep it small (file size)
8. use the network sparingly
9. help and guide user input
10. think of users on the go > stripped down version, interaction design

These are the current best practice details for mobile content creation.

Mobile web 2.0

1. transition of mobile apps to an internet model mobile web and connected apps
2. user choice
3. leverage open standards
4. more interactive mobile apps running in the browsers

Further resources
www.w3c.org/2005/mwi/bpwg/techs > wiki with info about the mobile web
dev.mobi > venture between nokia, aol and microsoft > developer resources and forum

The event was in the upmarket surroundings of Kensington, around 600 delegates arrived in the rain for the two days fun, seminars and power networking!

The alternative title of the event should have been: ‘ways of bridging interaction between on and off line world‘.

The programme was definitely more catered for the business point of view, rather than getting down and dirty with web code. This is probably going to be saved for the Future of Web Design conference this April, which I will be attending.

Most the the speakers gave advice on start up businesses, online communities and communication.

Probably my favourite speaker was Khoi Vinh who just made an exceptional case for web design being simple and clear. With the experience he has used on the New York Times site.

Here are my notes..

===============================

First was Mike Arrington of Techcrunch:

He focused on what to focus on for a new web application:

1. have a good idea

- invent a market
- destroy a market
- remove friction

2. have a business plan
3. have a revenue model – bandwidth charges – youtube $1m a month!
4. build it cheap, test the waters – don build full blown site from start..
5. avoid high burn rate – don’t hire everyone from the start..

>> stay hungry like you did the first 6 months.. as long as you can

example: youtube
>> they threw away their original business model, and flaunted intentralonl copyright law

>> however they had so much growth the money poured into cover burn rate
>> first to market this type of media
>> they removed frictions by provided a much needed service 65,000 videos uploaded a day

now thousands of flash enabled video sites, but weren’t the first, and thats the important factor.

case studies:

mybloglog.com > viral marketing for blogs
amiest.com > do to music industry what digg did to news industry > vote for content and music tracks, the more popular the price of track goes up.

attributes of winners
- passion for what they are doing
- doing something extraordinary

losers
- poor founder/team choices
- lifestyle ego entrepreneurs
- raised too much money
- spending too much money
- forgot about scaling
- had to try too hard at marketing

the buzz factor
- solve a real problem
- dont be 200th video sharing platform
- dont have a blog, start one now! – comment on people leaving comments..
- if buzz isnt happening, rethink your product (not your marketing)

> every successful entrepreneur says best time is in early days > when weren’t making money, but making the best work.

===============================

Edwin Aoki – The changing face of online communities

- we must make sure that the tools and services we can build can be used safely and effectively
- most users don’t care/ don’t care about the implications of being online, they don’t often think about or consider:

> security
> spam
> social effects

the applications must be accessible to all, including:
- the usually, audibly or motion impaired
- older generations
- people of developing and emerging nations

the future is in the balance

mashups vs. accessibility
- power and ease of use
- social benefits and commercial interests
- online and off line interactions

===============================

Tara Hunt – fostering/building online communities

A virtual community is:
1 – personal homepage/profile
2 – personal content creation
3 – ability to interact with ‘friends’ and share content

succession of users of community based sites
visitor -> customer -> community member

benefits of community
- heightened customer loyalty
- self policing
- amplified word of mouth > by love of using the product
- better feedback
- stronger and more interesting filters of content

3 levels of community
1 – lightweight social processes
2 – collaborative
3 – high end

high end social networking
lostpedia.com
couchsurfing.com

social networking case study
- create fun and freedom
- keep the dialogue going – personal use of product, answer customer emails personally
- experimental approach to development

===============================

All in all a great conference, even if it was just for the networking!

The Saturday night party out priced everyone who fancied meeting up in London. A place more suitable for Prince Harry’s friends, with sign by cloakroom “no dancing in this venue”..

However, a more suitable bar was found and fellow geeks reveled in the news of digg.com supporting openid, netvibes API’s and

Further resources:
Photo sets on flickr
Slide Presentations on Slideshare

bookmarks taken home from FOWA
programmableweb.com > mashups
aws.amazon.com > ec3 and mech turk
mybloglog.com
secondlife.com > where online and off line lives gets a bit murky
openid.com > Mine is: jimcallender.openid.com
ixda.org > interaction design organisation
jyte.com > social networking site supporting openID
wesabe.com > acheive career aims
mobilemonday.org.uk > mobile networking group in London

Jim Callender is the winner of the digital and media category for the Freelancer of the Year Award. He was awarded this at an event in London on 30th January 2007.

For more information on his thoughts, check out the blog post on his personal blog site at Jayonline.