It’s Feel Good on Friday time again

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• May 1, 2008

And this time feeling doesn’t even have to cost you a cent. All you have to do over at Mission Australia’s House the Homeless site is click a link. Every time someone does this Realesate.com.au donates $1.00 to the cause.

Now if Medecins Sans Frontiers can start doing this, and … Read more »

Happy Birthday Web

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• April 30, 2008

I’m a little late on this for Australia, but in many parts of the world it is still April 30, so, Happy Fifteenth Birthday Web!

If you were a human you would be in the smack in the middle of the very worst part of your spotty, rebellious, confused teenagerhood.

And no … Read more »

One step closer to the death of telemarketing

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• April 30, 2008

I like this as I do feel it is one step closer to one of the three things that I consider to be the worst three (marketing) scourges on the planet: telemarketing. We all pay (handsomely, thank you Telstra) for the privilege of having a landline. I do not have … Read more »

Guerilla Usability Testing with Andy Budd – Sold Out

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• April 28, 2008

I hope everyone who really really wanted to get along to learn about practical usability testing with Clearleft’s Andy Budd next month in Melbourne has managed to get a ticket, because the news is that this workshop, very popular from the start, has now completely sold out.

All of which … Read more »

Sleeveface – Amusing Flickr Meme

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• April 23, 2008

OK, the purpose of this exercise isn’t really to show you this meme, which you’ve probably seen anyway: Sleeveface.

What I’m pondering here, for my own reasons is, why do some memes work and others do not? With about 1300 entries (a lot of them from the same people), I’d … Read more »

Final resource from WDN08 – Indi Young’s Innovation with Mental Models

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• April 22, 2008

Innovation with Mental Models was one of my favourite presentations from Web Directions North this year. Indi, not to mention the clients she did the work for, was incredibly generous with the detailed description of her mental models approach to user research and product design.

Fascinating, candid content presented … Read more »

Melbourne – Next Wave Festival

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• April 22, 2008

If full days at Web Directions User Experience isn’t enough for you and you’re hankering for more culture “after hours”, check out the site for the Next Wave Festival, which starts on May 15 and goes through until May 31. Lots and lots of events, exhibitions, installations, performances and … Read more »

Breaking news: UCD is dead

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• April 17, 2008

Looks like the Jared Spool has set the cat amongst the pigeons at the IA Summit by making the claim that “UCD was an out-dated methodology that should be retired by the UX community”. Strong words.

Check the full story including Jared’s complete thoughts in this blog post.

All Web Directions North slides and podcasts now online

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• April 17, 2008

There was a whole host of genuinely excellent presentations at Web Directions North back in January. The good news for people who weren’t there is that so many of the presenters were incredibly generous with their knowledge and expertise and have allowed us to publish their slides and podcasts.

Check them … Read more »

Who’s this Jason Ryan guy?

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• April 17, 2008

You might have noticed we’ve got an optional extra breakfast included in the program at out up coming Canberra event, Web Directions Government. If you work in government, and you have any interest at all in the exciting Government 2.0 things they have been doing … Read more »

Classic nerdy time waster

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• April 16, 2008

Looking to while away a nice 20 minute block on this Thursday afternoon? Prove to yourself just how clever you really are with The Rather Difficult Font Game. And if that’s not enough, and you’d prefer to stray way off topic and not even kid yourself that this is … Read more »

Buy a pixel, return someone’s sight

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• April 10, 2008

Need to bump up your karma points before the excesses of the weekend? Do something for someone else today and you could remain guilt free for the whole weekend.

The guys over at Adobe’s Sydney office have set up MillionEyesofSite as part of a team building program. Between 4.30pm on … Read more »

Resources from Web Directions North

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• April 10, 2008

We’ve just gone live with a whole bunch of resource pages from Web Directions North 2008. For reasons too elaborate to bore you with here I decided to date stamp these back in February, so they might not be showing up in your reader.

Here’s those we have published so far … Read more »

Early Bird pricing extension for Web Directions Government and User Experience

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• April 9, 2008

It is hard to push through funding approvals to get to something like Web Directions. There’s been a bit of clamour about there simply not being enough time before early bird pricing ended, so we’ve decided to extend the cutoff date until next Thursday April 17 at midnight.

So now you … Read more »

Web Directions South 2008 survey closes

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• April 9, 2008

Thanks so much to the 85 people who took the time to share with us your thoughts on content for Web Directions South 2008. There are lots and lots of interesting new ideas in there - check out the spreadsheet here. In particular it was great to hear about … Read more »

Video on Flickr

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• April 8, 2008

My first response is that I like the way Flickr are doing this. In a move which is lightweight, simple, restrained and humble, pro users can now upload video clips up to 90 seconds long.

I like it because I think it’s going to foster something different to most of … Read more »

Powerhouse Museum joins The Commons on Flickr

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• April 8, 2008

More genuine awesomeness. Our very own Powerhouse Museum, just today, has become the first museum to join The Commons on Flickr. They will be uploading photos from The Tyrell Collection, a series of glassplate negatives from around the turn of the century, to their Flickr stream. Sections of … Read more »

Cameron Adams – The Man in Blue

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• April 7, 2008

He’s presented to rooms packed with some of the toughest audiences in the business at 66% of Web Directions Conferences, and survived the horrors of building a site with me as the client.

Cameron: Why have you used an anchor element with no content here when you could have added the … Read more »

Web Directions North Podcasts

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• April 6, 2008

Late last week we started releasing the podcasts from Web Directions North in January. Shortly I’m going to be gathering them all together into complete resources pages, with the MP3s, slides and any other materials we have, that will be hosted here at the Web Directions site. But if … Read more »

If I were…

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• April 3, 2008

If I were a fresh faced young CS undergraduate I would be onto the this opportunity to work for very good guys at Freshview (think Campaign Monitor and Mailbuild) like white on rice.

If I were a woman with my finger on the pulse of the Aussie startup scene I’d … Read more »

Excellent typography presentation from Jeff Croft

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• April 2, 2008

The possibility of truly excellent typography on the web, a la that beautiful book The Elements of Typographic Style, has been a reality for the last couple of years. Check out the MP3 of Jeff Croft’s presentation, Typography - Beyond the Font at last year’s Webmaster Jam Session, … Read more »

Sebastian Chan: DJ by night, web pioneer by day

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• April 1, 2008

Years ago I used to love listening to 2SER Radio in the afternoons, I think it was between 1pm and 4pm, when every afternoon a couple of different presenters would come in and play some of the finest music radio I have ever heard. Just good, interesting, largely dance … Read more »

Reminder – Early bird pricing for Melbourne and Canberra runs out April 11

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• April 1, 2008

We know it can take forever to get those approvals to go through, but don’t forget that to take advantage of the early bird price of just $495 for Web Directions Government or Web Directions User Experience, you need to get that registration in by Friday April 11. … Read more »

Design Coding by the SEO Rapper

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• April 1, 2008

Raising the bar for in house presentations on the benefits of web standards, the SEO Rapper really knows his stuff:

Want to preserve your emails for posterity?

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• March 31, 2008

I read in smh this morning that The Powerhouse Museum is creating Australia’s first public email archive in an attempt to preserve a collection of present day communications for future generations.

Anyone can contribute by going to the Email Australia site and submitting emails which are funny, sad, … Read more »

Reputation HQ

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• March 31, 2008

Sometimes I find it hard to tell the difference between a good idea badly executed and a plain old bad idea. This is one of those times.

Reputation HQ is a “socialprise web application that bridges the gap between Social Media and enterprise ORM”.

Yes, I had to look up ORM … Read more »

Best tool for discussing the survey results?

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• March 26, 2008

I decided to go with the forms feature of Google Spreadsheets for our Have Your Say in the Web Directions South 2008 Program survey. Only 24 hours in I’m largely happy with the choice, apart from

• I’d love to be able to limit which cells of the spreadsheet I share (so … Read more »

  David Hayward – Mapping

  • In: Resources
  • By: Maxine
  • March 26, 2008

  A presentation given at Web Directions Government, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.

  Government has huge amounts of information but how can this be effectively managed and delivered through the web? This session will ‘lift the lid’ on web mapping technology and identify some of the key issues that must be addressed to achieve a successful outcome.

  The NSW government SIX Viewer web mapping portal will be used as a case study to demonstrate how terabytes of data can be integrated and delivered via the Internet.

  See the slides and hear the podcast »

  Integrating stories and geography

  • In: Blog
  • By: Maxine
  • March 26, 2008

  I liked this, which I saw the other day (Hat Tip: Virginia Murdoch). It’s a story in the “hard-boiled” genre, told in bite sized chunks with each chunk connected to its location on Google Maps. As I said, I liked it, but it didn’t really hold my attention … Read more »

  Have your say in the Web Directions South 2008 program

  • In: Blog
  • By: Maxine
  • March 25, 2008

  Every year the Web Directions conference brings together a group of expert speakers who have been working on interesting projects and finding ingenious and practical solutions to those same challenges the attendees face in their own work.

  This year we’d love your help with finding out who those experts are.

  If you … Read more »

  Get ready for the crowdsourced conference

  • In: Blog
  • By: Maxine
  • March 25, 2008

  John and I have been thinking about ways of drawing on the great ideas for speakers and topics from the people who come to the conference ever since the closing keynote of Web Directions South 2007. Who better to tell you about what content should be there than the … Read more »

  Very useful Henry Jenkins quote

  • In: Blog
  • By: Maxine
  • March 25, 2008

  I always find it the most tiresome of conversation stoppers whenever anyone says “Twitter/Facebook/MySpace/Flickr/[insert name of social networking application here] is stupid. I don’t care what you had for breakfast. I don’t want to find out what my friends are up to over the web etc etc etc.” Boring!

  In a … Read more »

  Free event: Sebastian Chan on “New web technologies and museums”

  • In: Blog
  • By: Maxine
  • March 24, 2008

  Sydneysiders free around lunch time tomorrow should swing by the Powerhouse Museum and catch Sebastian Chan, who gave a much loved presentation at Web Directions South last year.

  As part of the Talks After Noon series, Sebastian will be speaking on the future of museums online and looking … Read more »

  Shall we click bracelets?

  • In: Blog
  • By: Maxine
  • March 19, 2008

  OK, off the cuff I’m troubled by all the references to girls and fairies in this interview with Chris Heatherly, Disney’s VP of Technology and Innovation, but there is mention of an innovative solution to a real problem. That problem being risks to personal security of children brought … Read more »

  Donald Norman takes on 37Signals

  • In: Blog
  • By: Maxine
  • March 18, 2008

  Or should that be 37Signals takes on Donald Norman?

  Responding to a Wired Magazine article in which he was quoted as saying that the kind of simplicity embodied in the products of organisations like 37Signals was overrated, Donald Norman blogs

  Now, I have always admired 37signals. Nice website, intelligent articles. … Read more »

  Scott Gledhill – Real world web standards

  • In: Resources
  • By: Maxine
  • March 10, 2008

  A presentation given at at Web Directions Government, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.

  Those initial stages of converting your company to web standards are much like trying to score that first kiss with the princess. You seduce them with the business benefits of web-standards development, and the rest of the arguments we have all read, written, and preached to anyone who will listen. But getting corporate web standards in place is just a sign that the real relationship is about to begin. The honeymoon is over, and now it’s time to figure out what has gone wrong and why the prince and princess now seem to be constantly bickering—when they were meant to live happily ever after.

  Scott draws on his experiences leading the development of eight large media web sites for News Digital Media to examine the ideals of web standards and how they translate within a large organisation. Learn how to make web standards work for you, when rules must be broken and how to deliver a final product that meets deadlines and still keeps project teams happy.

  See the slides and hear the podcast »

  Robert Hoekman Jr – The essential elements of great web applications

  • In: Resources
  • By: Maxine
  • March 10, 2008

  A presentation given at at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008, and Web Direction Government, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.

  Most great web applications have a few key things in common. But can you name them? Better yet — can you achieve them consistently in your own projects?

  In this closing keynote, Robert Hoekman, Jr., author of the Amazon bestseller Designing the Obvious (New Riders) describes the seven qualities of great web-based software and how to achieve each and every one of them by learning to communicate through design. See why it’s important to build only what’s absolutely essential, apply instructive design, create error-proof interactions, surface commonly-used features, and more in this informative session that will change the way you work and enable your users to walk away from your software feeling productive, respected, and smart.

  See the slides and hear the podcast »

  Ralph Douglas – GovDex: Collaborating online in a secure environment

  • In: Resources
  • By: Maxine
  • March 10, 2008

  A presentation given at at Web Directions Government, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.

  This session will look at the government collaborative tool Govdex, how it is currently used by agencies, what it provides, and how you can use it for your projects. GovDex is a resource developed by the Department of Finance and Deregulation to facilitate business process collaboration across policy portfolios and jurisdictions.

  GovDex, managed by the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) in the Department of Finance & Deregulation, promotes effective and efficient information sharing, which is core to achieving collaboration. It provides governance, tools, methods and re-usable technical components that agencies can use to assemble and deploy information services on their different technology platforms. GovDex is a key enabler to a whole of government approach to IT service development and deployment.

  See the slides and hear the podcast »

  Patrick Lee – One paper clip, a box of matches, and some JavaScript

  • In: Resources
  • By: Maxine
  • March 10, 2008

  A presentation given at at Web Directions Government, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.

  Whoever you are, if you’re writing JavaScript, there’s some aspect of your development that you would love to change if you had the chance. But the reality is you’ll never find yourself working in this ideal environment: dealing with legacy browsers, platforms and content management systems will be your constant as a developer. Patrick Lee is going to show you some tools and techniques that will help you make your peace with this fact.

  This session will explore how you can find ways to do the cool stuff you really want to do with JavaScript whilst working in the real world. And you won’t even have to sell your soul in the process.

  See the slides and hear the podcast »

  Oliver Weidlich – The mobile web user experience – we’re starting to get it right!

  • In: Resources
  • By: Maxine
  • March 10, 2008

  A presentation given at at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008.

  Historically the mobile web has been a terrible experience, but things are starting to change. Really! We are now at the point that the mobile web is becoming easier to access, both on-deck & off-deck, there’s useful & tailored services out there, and killing some time on the train home doesn’t cost more than your weekly train ticket. We’ll check out the latest and greatest in the world of mobile web and what makes them different from the others. We will also cover the important things to keep in mind for making a better mobile web customer experience.

  See the slides and hear the podcast »

  Matthew Hodgson – Social computing for knowledge management

  • In: Resources
  • By: Maxine
  • March 10, 2008

  A presentation given at Web Directions User Experience, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.

  The world is abuzz with social computing: Facebook, My Space, YouTube, Flickr, Wikipedia, blogs, wikis and other spaces powered by Web 2.0 technology. It’s a social revolution, empowering individuals to communicate, share what they know online, and help others locate information that is important to them in both their private and working lives.

  Some see all this as a big waste of corporate time, but is it? Is there value in handing over control of collaboration and sharing knowledge to individuals, rather than hoarding it in records systems, knowledge systems, and thousands of network dive folders? Is there a way you can harness this social revolution to help improve our organisation’s knowledge management practices? Is there actually a solid business value proposition for social computing?

  Matthew will look at knowledge management in modern organisations, and how you can benefit by learning from the principles of social computing and Web 2.0 technologies. Matthew will introduce two case studies in government that demonstrate successful and not-so-successful ways of employing social computing tools, the factors that contributed to their success, and the pitfalls to watch out for. In particular, he will look at the issues in relation to corporate culture by drawing on recent research in blogs and wikis based on work in organisational psychology by Hofstede.

  See the slides and hear the podcast »

  Mathew Patterson – Delivering user experience to the inbox: designing for email

  • In: Resources
  • By: Maxine
  • March 10, 2008

  A presentation given at at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008.

  So you’ve designed a fantastic website for your client, tested in all the major browsers and everything looks great. Now they want to send an email newsletter to all their customers, using the new design.

  No problem right? Just need to test in Outlook 07, and 06. Yahoo and Hotmail too, of course. Oh, and Gmail, Lotus Notes, AOL…Of course, the design may not work that well for an email anyway, and isn’t there some kind of anti-spam laws?

  Like it or not, HTML email is here to stay and the responsibility for doing it right belongs to web designers. Learn how to plan, design and build an email newsletter that will provide a great user experience to the recipients, and great value to your clients.

  See the slides and hear the podcast »

  Lisa Herrod – User testing for the rest of us

  • In: Resources
  • By: Maxine
  • March 10, 2008

  A presentation given at at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008.

  Everyone knows they should be doing it, but like software testing, it’s one of those things we often don’t get round to. In this presentation, Lisa Herrod looks at some sure fire user testing techniques that produce proven results, don’t cost the earth, and are easy to implement. After this session you won’t have any more excuses for not doing solid user testing of any site or application you develop ever again.

  See the slides and hear the podcast »

  Jos̩ Manuel Alonso РImproving Government through better use of the Web

  • In: Resources
  • By: Maxine
  • March 10, 2008

  A presentation given at Web Directions User Experience, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.

  It’s no secret that just as the web has revolutionised business, the media, and many other parts of our lives, it is also revolutionising how governments and citizens interact, and how government provide services.

  But how to do it well is still something of a black art.

  In this keynote presentation, the lead of the W3C’s eGovernment initiative, José Manuel Alonso, looks at the opportunities the web provides governments, the challenges, old and new, the web poses, and the role of the W3C in helping to develop underlying, interoperable technologies with which to build these services.

  José’s presentation will cover best practices and methodologies for providing eGovernment services, and look at case studies of how governments and communities are connecting via the web around the world.

  See the slides and hear the podcast »

  Jenny Telford – Opening up government data

  • In: Resources
  • By: Maxine
  • March 10, 2008

  A presentation given at Web Directions Government, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.

  Mapping and other mashups have taken the web world by storm - driving innovation in business and government alike. While much of the focus has been on the actual mashup applications, without the data to mashup, we have no mashups. Government, from local to Federal level, collect and manage a significant amount of data, across a very broad range of areas. But giving access to this data to web application developers has technical, policy and legal challenges. In this presentation, Jenny Telford of the ABS looks at these issues from their experience of opening up data from the Australian Census.

  See the slides and hear the podcast »

  Jason Ryan – Govt 2.0: the public management challenge

  • In: Resources
  • By: Maxine
  • March 10, 2008

  A presentation given at Web Directions User Experience, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.

  Technology changes present complex challenges and rich opportunities for senior public sector managers. Finding the balance between innovation and risk management is not easy in an environment where successful engagement depends upon relinquishing control. Using examples from New Zealand’s experience, Jason will share lessons and observations about the inevitable growing pains of public sector agencies as they evolve towards Govt 2.0.

  See the slides and hear the podcast »

  Jackie Moyes – Converting research findings into business speak

  • In: Resources
  • By: Maxine
  • March 10, 2008

  A presentation given at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008.

  Getting your company to adopt a user-centred design approach can be an uphill struggle. The first stage typically is to get them to agree to incorporate usability testing in to the development process, at a stage early enough to actually implement any design recommendations. The second stage is to convince them to do more ethnographic style research to understand the larger context of the task that the site is trying to support. The biggest challenge comes last – how to help the business owners make the mental leap between the in-depth findings from the research and the implications and opportunities it presents to your core business strategy and product roadmap.

  This is the challenge that the User Experience team at News Digital Media have been addressing. In this presentation, Jackie will discuss this issue in more depth and present examples of ‘design tools’ the team have been experimenting with to try and bridge this gap and help the business develop more user-centric strategies.

  See the slides and hear the podcast »

  Donna Spencer – Getting content right

  • In: Resources
  • By: Maxine
  • March 10, 2008

  A presentation given at at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008.

  We all know that great content is a core part of the website user experience. So why is it so hard to find content that isn’t dull, lifeless and uninteresting - blah, blah, blah?

  Web content can be vibrant, interesting and fun. It can draw you in, fill your head and make you learn without having to think. And it’s not really hard to write. Three simple tricks can turn poor content into a great experience - remember that readers care more about themselves than you; write in real words with authentic voice; play show and tell.

  This presentation will discuss these principles, with plenty of funny and not-so-funny examples. You’ll go away with practical steps to make your writing kick-ass. And you won’t even have to think.

  See the slides and hear the podcast »

  Andy Budd – Designing the experience curve

  • In: Resources
  • By: Maxine
  • March 10, 2008

  A presentation given at at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008.

  These days people expect more from a website than a handy set of tools and a pretty interface — they want an experience. From the moment somebody enters your site they’ll be judging you on everything from the way the site looks to the tone of your error messages. And they won’t just be judging you against other sites. They will be judging you on every customer experience they have ever had, from the rude man at the train station to the lovely hotel clerk that checked them in on holiday. So in order to compete, we need to up our game and look at experiences both on and off-line.

  In this session Andy Budd will look at the 9 key factors that go into designing the perfect customer experience. By taking examples from the world around us, Andy will discuss how we can turn utilitarian experiences into something wonderful.

  See the slides and hear the podcast »

  Andrew Kesper – ABC’s election site: making the most of dry data

  • In: Resources
  • By: Maxine
  • March 10, 2008

  A presentation given at at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008, and Web Directions Government, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.

  While elections can be exciting times, the underlying data - swings, booth counts, and the like is probably only riveting to psephological tragics. Yet the ABC’s election web site managed to take this raw data and make it attractive, compelling and interactive.

  In this session, the ABC’s Andrew Kesper takes us through the election site, looking at the design decisions, and uses of technology like Ajax, Flash, and interactive maps - tools which have wide applicability for government sites looking to present data in more user-friendly and attractive ways.

  See the slides and hear the podcast »

  Steve Baty – Analysing user research data

  • In: Resources
  • By: Maxine
  • March 5, 2008

  A presentation given at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Australia, May 16 2008.

  In our efforts to better understand the end users of the sites & applications we design, we generate a great deal of data. That data is useless to us until it has been analyzing and interpreted. This presentation looks at some of the methods & techniques we can use to make sense of user research data in a meaningful & rigorous way. The presentation will look at some of the common types of quantitative data collected during user research, and the statistical analysis methods we can employ to make the most of our data-gathering efforts. The session covers practical examples such as task completion rates, time-to-completion, page view comparison, as well as some basic concepts in statistics.

  See the slides and hear the podcast »

  Validation: coming soon to a web site near you

  • In: Blog
  • By: Maxine
  • February 7, 2008

  Ben Buchanan got in touch a few weeks back, excited to let me know that after a long struggle over at News Digital Media, they’d got the Aus IT home page to validate. Other people over at NDM have written in the past about the long march … Read more »

  Looking for shared office space in Sydney?

  • In: Blog
  • By: Maxine
  • February 7, 2008

  After too many years trapped inside the four walls of my own home, I’m bustin’ loose later this month and moving Web Directions Global HQ to Surry Hills, into what I think will be some very sweet office space - check the photo here.

  The good news is that for … Read more »

  Perth event: Ideas 4

  • In: Blog
  • By: Maxine
  • January 20, 2008

  Tickets have just gone on sale for Ideas 4, the fourth in a series of great evenings brought to you by the Australian Web Industry Association, to be held on January 30 at the Melbourne Hotel, Perth.

  Sounds like a great line up with usability expert Lisa Herrod of … Read more »

  Scott Berkun Podcast and slides now available

  • In: Blog
  • By: Maxine
  • January 10, 2008

  The Myths of Innovation, presented by Scott Berkun was one of the most intriguing and challenging presentations of Web Directions South 2007. It’s just a shame a few people missed it as it was on first thing on the Friday morning.

  The good news is that the MP3 Scott’s thought provoking … Read more »

  Who does these things?

  • In: Blog
  • By: Maxine
  • January 2, 2008

  Is it just me, or is there anyone else out there utterly gobsmacked by the fact that in 2008 one can go to the site for one of the country’s leading cultural events only to be blasted by blaring objectionable music that can’t even be turned off properly, at … Read more »

  What don't you want for Christmas?

  • In: Blog
  • By: Maxine
  • December 20, 2007

  Yes, it’s true, those crazy lads Tim Lucas and Cameron Adams have way too much time on their hands, but let’s indulge them in a bit of silliness shall we?

  Don’t let that acidic Chirstmas vitriol fester in your stomach until it explodes in a shower of turkey giblets on December … Read more »

  Email Standards Project launches

  • In: Blog
  • By: Maxine
  • November 28, 2007

  The Email Standards Project is a great advocacy and support initiative from the Campaign Monitor crew. Launched today, it aims to work with email client developers and the design community to improve web standards support and accessibility in email.

  It really is hard to believe that it’s been 10 … Read more »

  New blog at the Powerhouse Museum

  • In: Blog
  • By: Maxine
  • November 27, 2007

  Just launched is a new blog at Australia’s own Powerhouse Museum - Photo of the Day, showcasing some of the incredible photography created on a day by day basis by the museum’s photographers. Here you will see photography that goes far beyond that which simply documents museum’s collection, or … Read more »

  The Future of Email Design

  • In: Uncategorized
  • By: Maxine
  • November 22, 2007

  Yeah look, I can be irked by an HTML email as much as the next person, but step outside the rarefied atmosphere we all live and breathe for a moment and talk to some friends who work in just about any other sector and you’ll understand why they just aren’t … Read more »

  Why wikipedia does not run ads

  • In: Uncategorized
  • By: Maxine
  • November 22, 2007

  I’m kind of guessing that all of you who have looked up anything on Wikipedia in the last 24hrs will have seen the link to Why Wikipedia Does Not Run Ads. Check it out if not.

  It has some really strong arguments about how destructive the injection of cash could … Read more »

  Ghost Town – another reason to check out Perth’s ByteMe! festival

  • In: Uncategorized
  • By: Maxine
  • November 21, 2007

  Web Directions attendee Kate Raynes-Goldie has started a pervasive gaming company over in Perth - Giant Dice. Their first Perth venture, a mobile locative game called Ghost Town, will be held from December 2-9, as part of the ByteMe! Festival of digital content.

  Mobile locative games are an … Read more »

  Cricket action via twitter

  • In: Uncategorized
  • By: Maxine
  • November 20, 2007

  OK, let me preface this by saying that my care factor for cricket per se is barely measurable on on the non quantum level. What does interest me though is people’s obsessive fascination with the game.

  An obsessive fascination that leads to this fine bit of work by Myles Eftos, an … Read more »

  Off to Perth again

  • In: Uncategorized
  • By: Maxine
  • November 12, 2007

  Isn’t it funny how you will have never been to a particular city in your life, and then you find yourself going there twice in just a few months?

  I had a great time checking out Perth and Margaret River back in August when the good people from Western Australian … Read more »

  Relive Mark Pesce’s Mob Rules at Youtube

  • In: Uncategorized
  • By: Maxine
  • November 1, 2007

  Mark Pesce’s closing keynote, Mob Rules, was definitely one of the high points of Web Directions South this year. Most of you have probably had a look at the transcript, and maybe even listened to the MP3. But what’s really great is that Mark has gone to the … Read more »

  First Slidecast available

  • In: Uncategorized
  • By: Maxine
  • October 24, 2007

  I’d say you’ve been following the podcasts of the presentations from Web Directions South as they come onstream, and we’ve also gathered together a lot of the slides into the resources site.

  But something new and supercool has just come online: Scott Gledhill has gone the extra mile and … Read more »

  Make the world a better place, one micropayment at the time

  • In: Uncategorized
  • By: Maxine
  • October 22, 2007

  Got wind of a really cool Aussie project today: The Footprints Network.

  This is a great little system to easily funnel micropayments from any online store’s customers to genuinely needy organisations the world over.

  There’s an approval process to join the network, but then you get an API that you can … Read more »

  Powerhouse Museum – Jobs

  • In: Uncategorized
  • By: Maxine
  • October 14, 2007

  Folksonomies, mashups, data visualisation, UCD, usability, experimentation?

  One of the speakers from Web Directions South this year, Sebastian Chan from the Powerhouse Museum, just got in touch this morning to say his team is looking to fill a couple of developer roles.

  Sebastian’s presentation - Social Media and Government 2.0 - … Read more »

  Scott Buchanan and Ben Maguire

  • In: Uncategorized
  • By: Maxine
  • October 14, 2007

  Wig meets Web (2.0): harnessing the law to commercialise and protect your IP

  • MP3 of presentation - to come
  • Presentation slides - to come
  • Session description
  • About Scott Buchanan and Ben Maguire

  Session description

  Innovation and development in web 2.0 moves ever faster, the law as slow as always. So how can you … Read more »

  Making Links – Special Offer for Web Directions delegates

  • In: Uncategorized
  • By: Maxine
  • October 9, 2007

  Making Links 2007 is one of Australiaís leading forums for workers and activists in the not-for-profit sector to share skills and information relating to website development, online campaigning, online social networking and community building, and other ICT issues. The conference is in Sydney, October 30th - 31st

  This year the … Read more »

  Slides and podcasts

  • In: Uncategorized
  • By: Maxine
  • October 3, 2007

  Just a quick note for all those who have been emailing us asking after these.

  As many of them as we can gather together will be posted at the site real soon now. It does take a little time to contact all the speakers and get their slides and notes from … Read more »

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