Web Directions South 2011 | Web Directions

• In: Blog
• By:John
• October 17, 2011

When you work on something for an extended period of time but which itself lasts itself only a brief moment, such as Maxine and I do with Web Directions, there’s an intensity to the event itself, and the strange mixture of relief (and exhaustion) coupled with nostalgia when it has come and gone.

Luckily, through photos, tweets, blog and Facebook posts and even the odd video, increasingly an event like Web Directions is captured in more than just our memory.

Web Directions South, held last week, was the sixth annual Web Directions event we’ve run in Sydney, and though likely we feel this every year, it was in our estimation, and indeed of so many we spoke to, and based on many tweets we’ve read the best we’ve done by far.

The atmosphere was incredibly positive, (reflected in everything from the twitter stream, to the crowds who refused to go home, staying long into the night at the closing night party).

A new generation of partner companies, almost all from Australia and New Zealand, and most of which did not exist when Web Directions started back in 2006 companies shouted great parties, competitions, and most importantly showcased the sophistication and breadth (as well as spirit of fun) of the Australian web industry.

Similarly, while many of the speakers, local and international, may have been unknown to our audience, they excelled–educating, inspiring and entertaining. From opening keynote to closing, never have we seen such uniformly positive responses to a program.

Every presentation we had the privilege to see, as well as all those we didn’t but which we heard amazing things about, was world class.

Whether you were there, or missed out, as the podcasts and slides from presentations come online, we’ll tweet about them (so if you don’t already, you really should follow us on Twitter. Meanwhile, you can catch up on hundreds of past presentations from our conferences around the world from the last several years.

And, as a special treat, coming soon is a slickly produced video version of James Bridle’s amazing closing keynote, thanks to Hunting with Pixels.

In the meantime, Ben Buchanan has already made available his traditional big stonking post™ with detailed live notes, links, and photos from a dozen presentations. So, if you missed it, and can bare to see what you missed out on, it’s a great place to start.

Thanks!

• A huge thanks to our wonderful sponsors, partners and exhibitors
• To our incredibly generous speakers
• To Cameron Adams for the opening sequence, setting a new standard for creativity with Web Technologies
• To the Design Computing program at the University of Sydney for their incredible exhibition of interactive technology
• To the W3C Australia Office for once again hosting the W3C South Track
• And not least to the fantastic, positive, open minded, engaged audience.

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