Year round learning for product, design and engineering professionals

Natalie Downe & Simon Willison – Lanyrd: From side project to startup

Photo of Natalie DownePhoto of Simon WillisonThis talk will tell the story of Lanyrd, from a two-week proof of concept to a full-fledged startup via three intensive months of Y Combinator in Silicon Valley. They’ll share the trials, tribulations and lessons they learned along the way. This is the talk they wish they’d heard before they got started!

Tom Coates – Opening keynote: A New Network

Photo of Tom CoatesIt’s time to recognise the scale of the project we have in front of us, the breadth of the material we have to work with, and the possibilities of design within it. All of human knowledge, creativity—even the planet itself—is our canvas.

Chris Wilson – Keynote: The Convergence of All Things

Photo of Chris WilsonThis keynote will focus on the unique potential offered to web developers — the ability to use the web platform to build compelling applications that reach across different devices, scenarios and environments. In discussing the approaches necessary to deliver great experiences across all these spaces, we will also uncover unique opportunities in a platform that reaches from mobile phones to the biggest display screen in your house.

Jason Grigsby – Keynote: Native is Easy. Mobile Web is Freaking Hard!

Jason Grigsby PortraitNo one who advocates for the mobile web wants to admit it, but it is true. Native is easier. It’s easier to sell to stakeholders. Easier to monetize. And most importantly, easier to implement. So how do we sell mobile web projects? How do we work with the systems we currently have to build compelling mobile web experiences?

Tatham Oddie – Practicing Web Standards in the Large

Tatham Oddie PortraitWeb standards might be second nature to all of us here, but they don’t always fly so easily in the enterprise. Obscure browsers and CIOs watching their bottom line can often leave a passionate development team feeling stifled. In this session we’ll look at how a number of large scale websites successfully adopted new standards and opened their content to more audiences and devices than ever before.

Josh Williams – Keynote: Where are we going?

Josh Williams PortraitDuring this brisk discussion we’ll separate fads from the future, debate native apps versus the mobile web, take an honest look at the hype behind geo-location, then take a step back to ask ourselves where the web—and we ourselves—are going. Hold on, it’s going to be a wild ride!

Grant Young – Creating platforms for social innovation

Grant Young PortraitIn this presentation Grant Young will examine how innovative organisations are using social technologies and design methods to create multi-dimensional value — both for the organisational and community — and will explore the themes that underpin the examples with a view to applying them in your context.

James Bridle – Wrangling Time: The Form and Future of the Book

James Bridle PortraitThe internet has been around long enough now that it has a proper history, and it has started to produce media and artefacts that live in and comment on that history. James will be talking about his work with writing, books and wikipedia that hopes to explain and illuminate this temporal depth.

Craig Mod – How digital affects books and publishing

Craig Mod PortraitWe need to decouple the idea of ‘book’ from the mental image we carry around of ‘book.’ The innovation and benefit that digital brings to books and publishing lies less in how digital affects final artifacts, and more in how digital affects the systems leading up to and extending beyond those artifacts.

Deborah Schultz – It’s the people, stupid

Deborah Schultz PortraitThe most interesting problems on the web are social, not technical. Once the open, social stack moves into wide use, the real work is going to be on us to create ongoing experiences that inspire, inform, evolve. Avoid this talk if you want to hear about monetizing community, gaming the newest social site for a quick spike in your user numbers, or how to get a [insert cutting edge social platform] strategy for your brand.

Lynne d Johnson – Opening keynote: New media – new business

Web Directions South 2008, Sydney Convention Centre, September 25 9.10am

Lynne D Johnson PortraitLynne will set the tone of the conference this year with insights into the future of media drawn from her wealth of experience in business, media and online communities as Senior Editor at Fast Company.

Myles Byrne – Internationalization – a guide to dealing with the web’s favorite 20-letter word

Web Directions South 2008, Sydney Convention Centre, September 26 1.40pm.

Myles Byrne PortraitSo, you’ve decided to tap into a whole new world of business oppportunities by stepping outside the anglocentric world. That’s great! But the process of internationalisaton can be a genuine minefield for the unitiated, so take a few tips from someone who’s been there before. In this talk Myles will cover what internationalization is, when to do it, and how to implement it. Topics include: localization, organising your content for translation, finding and managing translators, and dealing with the unexpected technical issues that inevitably arise.

Laurel Papworth – The business of being social

Web Directions South 2008, Sydney Convention Centre, September 26 10.45am.

Laurel Paprworth PortraitIt’s not true that there are no proven monetisation models for online communities; in fact, there are distinct revenue streams that have been successful over many years. This session looks at the soft returns on investment for engaging with user generated content, communication and collaboration with the consumer and then moves into how social networks earn money for their investors and developers.
The aim of this session is to limit the slapping of banner ads on every niche community online – you might be surprised to learn that the least profitable revenue model is… Advertising! Come, spend an hour on the Dark Side, and find out which social networks are making money, how much and by what means and learn about the business models in this growth industry.

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I’ve been admiring the Web Directions events for years, and was honored to be part… What a fantastic event!

Ethan Marcotte Inventor of 'Responsive Web Design'