Last week I attended @media 2009 at the Southbank Centre in London and felt somewhat nostalgic as it was my 3rd visit having been to the first ever event in 2005.
I’d great difficulty finding the venue for @media, having stopped several people none of which had ever heard of the Southbank Centre. Twenty minutes stumbling around later my colleague and I eventually found it by luck no thanks to the complete lack of signage – marks lost already.
Thankfully the conference started late so I hadn’t missed Andy Clarke who’d been looking forward to hearing since I booked my place. As usual Andy didn’t let me down and about 90% of the notes I took were attributed to his content. Andy’s presentation Walls Come Tumbling Down was particularly relevant to the private sector in today’s credit crunch but as a public sector web manager I got enough out of it to make me rethink how my team works and better ways of developing in the future. I have already discussed designing in the browser with my colleagues and been looking at CSS3 for progressive enhancement within hours back at my desk.
Next up was Simon Collison who didn’t disappoint either with his lovely package, or was it his ultimate package? Simon’s process toolbox again was very relevant and having developed something similar with my own team I thought there was nothing to gain from the presentation. However, Simon played a blinder for me near the end when he showed the audience his clever in page feedback facility which provides his team with details on the customers browser, window width, screen res etc.
Next up was Jon Hicks who spoke about icon design. I didn’t expect to enjoy this talk but Jon is a great presenter with a real likeability factor, perhaps he should audition for the X Factor?
After Jon we went off for a spot of lunch and ended up with rather dull food from the imaginatively named (sarc.) Eat. Rather too long sitting in the sun and watching joggers dodge past the crowds didn’t help our first signs of heat exhaustion much so it was something of a relief to head back into the venue. That was of course until we got into the room itself which was beginning to feel like an oven!
Dan Rubin was up next and this is where I started to feel a sense of deja vu. Much of what Dan said was interesting and again relevant to me but I was pretty sure I’d heard much of it before on a podcast. Was this presentation a repeat? I felt Dan was making some really good points about the use of light and texture in designs but it was kinda lost on the big screen as the effects were obvious.
Mark Boulton went onto Typography next and made us all laugh as he told us about how he’d been hounded since he declared his love for Comic Sans. Mark was very slick but I’m ashamed to say in the last 20mins of his talk the heat got the better of me and I started to nod off. A 10 minute break later and that was enough for me, I made the call to miss Jason Santa Maria and I’ve a feeling I missed something great so am looking forward to the podcast when ready!
On day two the first presentation really didn’t appeal to me so we used it as an opportunity to catch up on some lost sleep and made an appearance half way through Chris Wilson’s “The Web Platform Just As It Is”. I found this one particularly boring, which is no slant on Chris but I guess this was one more for the designers than developers. Molly was next up and despite her yee haas the heat I felt the HTML5 presentation was mainly a filler until Bruce bolted on stage in his rather fetching chaps. Bruce spoke very well and I am really looking forward to his Html5 doctor site which is due for release soon.
After watching countless children and adults get soaked in the fountain during lunch we returned for Andy Budd who received an excellent reception. Andy is a fantastic speaker and there were some great pointers in his user testing talk that I have certainly taken away with me.
After Andy came Robin Christopherson who immediately made the audience gasp as he demonstrated the ridiculous hoops blind users have to jump through to navigate past captchas. I personally couldn’t believe how the Google sign up captcha was so inaudible nor how adept Robin is with a screen reader, man he was fast!
Unfortunately I had to leave early to catch my flight and missed the very entertaining Jeremy Keith moderate the hot topics panel. All in all I felt somewhat let down by @media 2009. Perhaps the schedule was to blame, was it wise to have Andy Clarke up first? Personally I’d have left him and Colly to day two and left the punters eager with anticipation.
The venue too was a let down. It was much too hot, I can’t believe that was as good as their air con got. Between talks there was no supply of water, seriously, its free people?! Oh and if you managed to grab a cold drink outside you weren’t permitted to bring it in, plastic cups anyone? Really when paying so much money in these trying times I expected more, especially having to buy my own lunch.
Lastly a shout out to Ross, the MC for the event. I really don’t want to offend anyone but… was this his first ever public appearance? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look so uncomfortable on stage and why did every time he get up did he proceed to walk side to side with his head down? Hello, we’re over here! And that suit, just how long was it? I really wanted to take a pair of scissors to his cuffs and trousers lol!
Not sure if I’ll splash out for @media 2010 unless a bit more though goes into the venue, hospitality and line up.
