Comments on: “we have a tech generation that thinks that’s all there is”

By: john

john — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:28:03 +0000

users
yes yes yes yes.
increasingly thinking that apps are being built for…well the hell of it, or for users who liek apps
twitter, great app love it makes my life so much easier but so what? the general joe doesn’t get it.

now, how do we build apps for real people?
what do they want?
what do they need? (and is it the same thing)
who are they?
where are they?
thats a big ask….

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:26:37 +0000

Hey Ryan – great to see you at lunchtime (you Subway guy, you..) – would be great to chat further about FOWA and what you have planned for the future. Preferably, we should do this over a pint

By: Ryan

Ryan — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:19:58 +0000

Mike,

Great thoughts and I appreciate the depth you went in to. I’ll take these on-board for next year!

Best,
Ryan

By: Lisa P

Lisa P — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:28:24 +0000

Apart from the pool of oil in my plate Good post mr dmje! It is really, really hard to strike the content/presenter balance right at a conference. It’s something we spent a huge amount of time on when I was at Carsonified, and each time you do an event you learn a new way to try and guarantee quality, but it’s never 100% perfect. I’m sure Carsonified would be interested in exploring your ideas about involving users in future events because they are always thinking of ways to improve the experience for attendees (who represent *their* users!).

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 16:03:47 +0000

@Bealers – and good Italian food on the Friday night, too…

By: Bealers

Bealers — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 14:39:05 +0000

This year was my first FOWA and it was definitely a positive experience. I came away motivated and inspired, but that was as much due to rubbing shoulders with my peers as it was for a bunch of deeply insightful talks.

The developer track was definitely more high-level than I was expecting which was a tad disappointing.

I did find one user there, in the lunchtime ‘University’ sessions one of the http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/ people gave the myspace talker a light drubbing over their accessibility or rather lack of.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 14:25:07 +0000

Hi Tim – yes, couldn’t agree more – the sucky sales pitch stuff is probably a necessary part (not least of all to get the thing funded…). In some ways though I feel better knowing that a presentation is salesy than I do about one that is mediocre.

re. users – I’d have liked to have seen a session (or even a track!) organised at the conference which brought in delegates who were non-technical and asked them how it was using app X or website Y, not necessarily relying on them to turn up..

By: Tim Beadle

Tim Beadle — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 14:06:53 +0000

Mike,

I was only watching the Tweets from my desk back in Bristol, but for me FOWA’s Curate’s Eggness was summed up by the juxtaposition of Tim Bray (who all but one Tweeter I saw thought was amazing, if a little Reality Bites) and the Guy From Salesforce.com doing, basically, a product pitch.

Perhaps it’s difficult to have one without the other, and – put more positively – it may demonstrate a certain Yin/Yang on the part of Carsonified.

At least Tim Bray was there giving the reality check…

Agreed on “where are the users” though. But how to get them to a geek event?

Cheers,

Tim