Reflections on the first 24 hours of the Web Direction South 2010 “Tell us what you want” survey

• In: Blog
• By: Maxine
• February 9, 2010

Yesterday I launched our “Tell Us What You Want” survey for Web Directions South 2010. In essence this is a call for papers really, it’s just that we don’t like using that term as we think it makes us sound like some sort of antediluvian academic symposium, which, I’ll hope you agree, we are not :)

First up, if you haven’t taken the time to submit your thoughts on what you’d like to see at Web Directions this year, and what you’d like the event to be like, please do so - we’d love to hear from you.

Over the next few weeks, and especially after the survey closes, I’d like to publish my thoughts on interesting ideas and proposals that emerge. It’s useful for me to be structure my responses in this way, and it’s also a way to maybe hear your thoughts on my thoughts!

I’m always a bit stumped by what to do with highly polarised responses. For example when I see things like

I would also like to see more forward-thinking, futuristic talks. I always look forward most to the keynotes, as they help inspire me to push the field forward, rather than being mired in the minutiae of current day techniques and implementation (which I find relatively useless at a conference given that it’s far more effective to read about it online).

beside things like:

Speakers covering the web from a ‘real’ position - there’s lots of aspirational and ideal world talk at conferences, the best things I find to take away are those which are attainable, achieveable goals not just shooting for the stars. As always, it’s about finding the right mixture.

or this

I would be interested in learning the best practices for freelancers and small shops that help them stay organized, focused, and productive.

beside things like:

I’ve also felt that the last conference was more targeted towards freelancers and less to those ‘professional’ developers/ designers who have a lot of internal politics to get through.

it’s always amusing and disheartening in equal measure. Ultimately we do the numbers on comments like this and disregard things which seem to be in the minority, or strike compromises when there really does seem to be a collection of polarised opinions on a topic. But it does always give you pause as we’re sorry to displease anyone really.

Anyone got any thoughts on what’s really going on when you get comments like that?

Your opinion:

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