There will be a web design conference in Sydney this year
As the saying goes, nature abhors a vacuum.
In the last 12 hours I’ve chatted with three people who expressed concern that there wasn’t going to be a web design conference here in Sydney this year as there has been for the last two years. So, while we were hoping to wait until the paint was dry and the curtains were up, I think it might actually be a good idea to share the good news. Which is.…
There will be a conference held in Sydney on September 28 and 29 this year, along with some associated workshops on the 26th and 27th. The conference will focus on
- standards based design and development
- accessibility
- user centred design
- information architecture
with international and local speakers letting us in on all the latest thinking on web design, and in particular, the development of web applications.
And it will be brought to you by myself, Maxine Sherrin, and my business partner John Allsopp, two of the people who brought you WE05 and WE04. An extremely high priority for us will be to maintain and build on the spirit of those previous events, with content which is for developers by developers, in a friendly non-corporate atmosphere.
I don’t want to ruin the surprise by giving away too much more than that, but feel free to speculate to your hearts’ content in the comments, subscribe to the RSS feed so you’ll be the first to know the news, and get in touch if you have any questions at all.
All will be revealed at the beginning of May.
Tags: conference, web, webdirections, wd06
It’s sad not to see another “Web Essentials,” but It’s great to see the spirit is so blatantly alive and kicking!
You guys have been an inspiration, and have shown the world what a dab hand you are at putting together such a top-notch professional, community-focussed event.
Best of luck, although I’m sure you don’t need it.
Go Maxine and John! I can’t wait. Time to raise the Perth army. The Vulcan Hotel had better watch out.
Wonderful news!
I know there will be a lot of very happy people reading this today.
No doubt this years conference will build on the great achievements of the past two years and really show what we’re capable of as a community.
It’s going to be great!
Henry Rollins, right? OMG, you got Henry Rollins to talk about Web 2.0!
Looks like it’s all coming together beautifully. I’m so glad, Maxine! Thanks for all your efforts and hard work to make this happen.
I can’t wait to catch up with everyone again in September!
@Patrick, Kay and Lisa — what lovely sentiments! Thankyou so much, you’ve made my morning.
@Cam — oh yes, and the good news is I’ve saved a packet on his accommodation because he’ll be staying at my place :-)
Joy of joys.
Great!
So, Jakob on the shortlist?? woot.
Yes Cam, Henry Rollins will be MCing the event.. and Jello Biafra will be there running a workshop on using JSON data with XMLHttpRequest, I’m really looking forward to it
Wooo! Time to get the finances in order then..
@Kay: Shhhh!! don’t tell the world about the Vulcan! Jeeeez ;)
Really looking forward to watching Henry Rollins bench-press Cam during his keynote. Should make great flickr material.
We’re all very excited here on the west coast — John gave us the quick lowdown last night, and you could see the room thinking of booking flights ASAP. :)
Only problem I have is who will be my employer then, for me to ask for my time off.
Another member of the Perth army will be there.
So. Damn. Sweet. Can’t wait for this one.
Maxine — think you will need to hose your house out after that one.
Hi Maxine, thanks for the tip on Leisa’s blog. Just a note to let you know I got it.
Looking forward to the Rollins keynote moshpit ;)
Excellent news! Must start saving.
The Information Architecture stuff should be interesting, haven’t really studied that properly before.
Also — please give as much notice about the other workshops as possible. I had already booked airfares and accom for last year before the Veen workshop was announced and it was too expensive to change :(
Jason — glad to hear you’re exctied about the new conference. And yes, it was unfortunate that the workshop was organised at the last minute in 2005. This year the workshops will be announced at the same time as the conference itself, so please stay tuned!
Bugger, I’ll be in America. I would have loved to attend.
And the world rejoices!
With Henry Rollins and Jello Biafra on the roster, how about you round it out with Mike Doughty? Then the three of them can present on standards, browser woes, usability, accessibility and information architecture all in spoken word poetry.
Now THAT would be a unique event ;-)
My little world is certainly rejoicing! Just show me where to point my wallet…
WE04 and 05 were brilliant. Just brilliant. I was scared I would have to go through withdrawal symptoms this year.
Spoken word poetry is all well-and-good but what we really need is Web 2.0 explained through interpretive dance.
:-)
If you’re around in Sydney in June, Gavin, I’ll be delivering my entire in morse code delivered by jazz tap shoes:
http://webstandardsgroup.org/meetings/index.cfm?event_id=62
Aww heck Cameron, I will be stuck in Brisbane. You should Podcast it though…
Tap, tap, tappity tap, tappa tappa tappa.
:-)
Maxine, will you be doing the podcast thing for Web Directions?
@Cameron — I can’t wait to hear that podcast, though I’m not sure about your accessibility policy. I mean, requiring people to know morse code in order to learn Javascript — what’s with that?
@Gavin — we will definitely be having a program of podcasting this year, I’ll probably blog about this here as things start to fall into place. Just as it was last year though, the podcasts will only be a taste of the much wider event that will be Web Directions 06. Remember, good as it might be, the content is only half the actual experience of being at a conference or event.
“…only half the actual experience of being at a conference or event.”
Maxine: at the risk of sounding like your PR manager I must categorically agree!
All the best with things falling into place.
@Max — gotta disagree with you there, I mean after I saw a photo of the Eiffel tower, Mount Everest and Ankor Wat, I thought “well I’ve seen them now, what’s the point in going?”
:)
*Great* analogy Cheryl — I will be using that for sure as time passes!
Great news!
WE04 and WE05 were excellent. I’m also be there for WebDirections 2006 (herewith abbreviated to WD 06).
But won’t the new name cause some brand confusion in 2040?
WD 40?
:)
This is fantastic. Looking forward to it! WE04 and We05 were such a blast — I’m sure this year’s event will be bigger and better than ever.
I heard Cameron Adams is giving a presentation on his latest work, aptly titled ‘Web Standards on Rails’! With it, you can build a web standards masterpiece in 15 seconds with only 5 lines of code…
Nigel: Hmmm, Web Directions is going to be great, but I don’t know that I’m in a position to promise anything quite as great as this!
Actually Nige, I’ll be live-coding a wiki-tagging-maps mashup using Assembler.
GOTO 1
@ Chris — WD40 will be useful if we’re in retirement and our techniques get a bit rusty…
glad to hear it is on again. i will be there in the back row.
can i suggest getting Roger Johansson to visit our shores? i am a big fan of his and it would be nice to have another accent grace the stage. ;)
Ben,
I’m afraid Roger won’t be here this year, but perhaps one day.
However there will be several different kinds of accent to choose from this year. It’s not just “the usual suspects” (though there will also be some of them:)
Come on John give us some hints ;-)
Do I have to start training, seeing I promised (along with Kay) to take Molly shopping next time.
Or does “several different kinds of accent” just mean you are getting speakers from both Sydney and Melbourne.
Instead of US, Canada and Brighton.
Nick,
all will be revealed in the next week or so.
Sydney, Melboune, Brisbane, Canberra, plus accents from 5 different countries on top of that.
Stay tuned
> Sydney, Melboune, Brisbane, Canberra
Wot no Perthites ?
Just me being impatient as usual.
Well, I too was one of those concerned people, having not heard anything about WE06 and the site not being updated. But then thanks to themaninblue.com, I was relieved to read the snippet about Web Directions 06 and follow the link to here. I have linked to the feed and await first sign of the early-bird tickets!
WE04/WE05 were both fantastic conferences, so for WD06, I look forward to the latest developments in standards and accessibility plus the additions of UCD and information architecture. I know Maxine and John will do a fantastic job (are Peter and Russ onboard?!).
And John, I look forward to the after party kicking on down at the ‘Cross once again :)
Wow! Excellent news. Just the other day I tried to visit we06.com and was sad to see nothing there. If the presenters are as amazing as WE05 I’d have a hard time not returning this year. Either way, best of luck Maxine and John!
“..All will be revealed at the beginning of May…”
It’s the beginning of May.….
Robyn,
just a few days away now.
The speakers are all lined up.
The workshops are organised.
The venue is organized.
We are just finalizing the registration system, and tidying up some loose ends. But we are very close to launching.
Thanks as always
john
cool. looking forward to the workshops especially this year. last years with Veen was really good…
Thx for all lovely comments, it really makes a difference to see people getting all excited when you’re running around like a mad thing pulling it all together.
Almost ready to go now, finalising the payment system and site. The only thing you can squeeze out of me now is that there will be 4 workshops, on the two days before the conference, and the tickets for these will be available from the get-go. Expect an announcement next Wednesday :-)
I can’t wait to see what you guys are going to do, I can barely contain my excitement. Roll on next Wednesday! There should be a few of us coming down from Darwin this year!
Two-days to go! Exciting stuff! And, it sounds like you both have it all under control — congrats!
As an aside, what do we need to do to get Adelaide included in future WD workshops? Or, … shall I move to BNE / SYD / MLB instead? ;-)
Well, its now Wednesday. Where is the site??
We are soooooooooo close. Isn’t there some sort of aphorism about Rome that would apply at this moment? Patience people — what’s the big hurry? :-)
Oh, we just all want to be the first to blog it. Don’t we guys?
[…] If I’m going to seriously consider attending WD06 in September, I really need to start saving up significantly. Unlike many others, because I’m a freelance contractor and I’m not lucky enough to have my employer cover it for me, I have to cover the whole cost by myself. […]
[…] year at Web Directions South alongside our traditional Design and Development focus, there’s a new Management/Strategy track. So, if you design or develop […]