Archive for ‘places’ category

Future Talk

Ten years ago, two of my biggest fears were: flying and public speaking. I’ve done enough of both (usually combined) over the last several years to where I’m now OK with either. At times even comfortable with it. I’ll probably always get nervous right before a talk — but the anxiety has shifted from, “crap, how am I going to get through this” to, “I want this to be good. I don’t want to let anyone down”.

With that confession out of the way, the next year is filling up with some great events, and I thought I’d list them here:

Ethan and I are also looking for other unique cities to bring the Handcrafted CSS event to. Have an idea, or know of an event that needs a full-day course that covers CSS3, fluid grids, bulletproof design and more? We’d love to hear about it (in the comments on this post).

Carson Workshops: Handcrafted CSS in London

I’m pleased to announce the super excellent folks at Carsonified are bringing the Handcrafted CSS workshop to London! Carson Workshops will be presenting Ethan Marcotte and myself in a reprise of the one-day course we organized last month here in Salem, MA. And it’s surely going to be a blast.

Just like last time, each attendee will get a copy of the book (Video Edition including the DVD) and we’ll spend the day walking through much of its content and more. This event was a great success here in New England, and we’re thrilled to bring it to the UK. Thanks to Carson Workshops for making this happen!

So join us on November 23rd at Wallspace St Pancras in London. For more info on the event and to book a place (there’s a max of 70 spots), visit the Carson Workshops site.

Handcrafted Haiku Winners Announced

Well, we loved them all, and agonized over choosing two winners to receive a ticket to next month’s Handcrafted CSS workshop. But decide we did!

Winner #1 is @wilto, waxing poetic about a place we’ve all been, surely:

IE6 lives on.
Box model—and heart—broken.
position: fetal;

And Winner #2 is @squaregirl , who in three perfectly penned lines reminds us of the importance of validation during development:

Curly braces sound cute.
Until you leave one out. Oops!
I fracked my stylesheet.

Congrats to the winners! And thanks again to the fine folks at Campaign Monitor for sending them to the workshop. Which, by the way, is only a little over two weeks away. Spaces are being filled up, so grab a ticket and join us in Salem, won’t you?

Handcrafted CSS: The Workshop

Now that we’ve announced the book, we can also announce another exciting thing: Handcrafted CSS: A Day of Markup & Style will be a unique, one-day workshop presented by Ethan Marcotte and myself on September 14, 2009 at the Hawthorne Hotel here in Salem, Massachusetts.

You’ll get a copy of the book (the Video Edition, including the DVD), and we’ll present the content live, throughout four takeway-packed sessions, followed by Q&A. Breakfast, lunch and two snack breaks are also provided. And we’ll cap off the day with an after party at an awesome location to be determined.

The Hawthorne Hotel is located in downtown Salem, just 16 miles north of Boston. It’s also just a 10-minute walk from the MBTA Commuter Rail station which connects Salem to Boston in about 25 minutes.

This will be a unique opportunity to buy a book, then have the authors work through it live, with a chance to ask questions along the way. It’s sure to be a fun day — and we’re pretty damned excited about it.

Early-bird and student tickets are now available at a discounted price of $399 per person. Act quick! There’s limited seating for 100 fine people like you.

Oh, and interested in sponsoring the event? We’d love to hear from you.

An Event Apart Seattle

In just two weeks, I’ll be heading west to Seattle for An Event Apart. The event, as with any AEA show, will undoubtedly rock. It’s also on the brink of being sold out, so act now if you’d like to attend. You can also save an extra $100 off the registration by using the discount code AEACEDE.
And that reminds me. If one were looking for the best coffee in Seattle, where would one go? Let the debate begin, fine folks of the Pacific Northwest.

Build Society, February 2nd

Clear your schedules, Boston-area web geeks! An extra-special joint event with fellow North Shore pals, Build Guild and the Markup & Style Society (new site coming soon) are co-hosting a meetup here in Salem on February 2nd. Special guest Eric “Rock Horns” Meyer will be in town—and when Mr. Meyer is in town, you gather up the troops and celebrate with frosty beverages and good times. You just do.

As usual, my M&SS cohort Mr. Marcotte has written up a far better summary of the night’s events. As has Mr. Meyer.

Hope to see you here in the Witch City for what is sure to be a wonderful night of markup, style and guilding. If that makes sense.

Upcoming Speaking Events

We’re at Day Two, and there’s already quite a bit on the calendar for 2009. I’m honored and thrilled to be speaking at the following events this year, microformatted for your convenience:

There’ll be more info forthcoming on the workshop in London next Fall, which will hopefully stem off of a new project that’ll be underway a few weeks from now.

I’m also excited to mention that Meagan will be speaking at Future of Web Design London in April. More about that over at Meagan’s blog.

Happy New Year, fine people.

Tokyo Express

I returned from Tokyo on Monday. I gave a talk at the Web Directions East conference. I’ve never had a simultaneous translation of a presentation before. I hope it went OK. I’ll be forever grateful to John Allsopp, Satoshi Kukichi and the rest of the WDE team for inviting me to speak, being incredibly gracious hosts and generally being awesome people. I’ll never get tired of traveling to faraway places, where (without fail) the quality of people in this industry inspire, impress and humble me. I feel lucky.

I don’t think I’ll travel that distance again without the rest of my family.
I’ll never forget walking through customs after spending the entire Election Day in the air. CNN was on in the airport lobby. ‘Barrack Obama Elected President of the United States’ it said. Twenty seconds later, John McCain started his concession speech. Relief after 14 hours of nail-biting anticipation.

I took a lot of photos. I tried packing as much into a few days as possible. I was amazed by the giganticness of the city. I caught a view of the cityscape at night, at the top of the hotel where Lost in Translation was filmed. They wanted a $20 cover charge, so we left.

I loved that every train station in Tokyo has it’s own unique short little melody (hear them all). I love how this aids accessibility with audio. I’m thinking we need more unique audible melodies for events that happen on the web or desktop. I was also impressed with the grooved sidewalk path found throughout the entire city, which would direct a blind person from station to station, uninterrupted.
I probably didn’t bow enough.

I sang Don’t Stop Believing in a karaoke bar in Shinjuku along with friends old and new. I’ve never sang karaoke before. I had the best doughnut I’ve had in my life in Harajuku, at Tamagotchi Donuts. I was amazed by the depth of the character culture in Japan. It permeates everything and everyone — not just for kids, but a part of general communication throughout the city.

I tried the eel (unagi) and ‘chicken knuckles’, but was less adventurous with the raw horsemeat. I loved the simplicity of the food in Japan. I have a new favorite snack in ‘onigiri‘, a triangle of sushi rice, seaweed, and (in my case) teriyaki-soaked seaweed inside. I’ll have to hunt for those here at home.

I learned two Japanese phrases. I should’ve learned more.

Tipping Point

photo

At one of my favorite local coffee shops, I’ve noticed they have a creative take on generating tips. I’m sure this is used elsewhere as well, but it’s the first time I’ve come across it.

There are two baskets by the register, with a rotating sign above that asks a question. Today it was: “Should Obama pick Hillary as Vice President?” Throw your tip in the appropriate basket, and we get an instant, visible poll as a byproduct of giving your barista a little extra change. Some questions generate a more noticeable swing in basket preference (sorry, Hillary), while others are just fun throwaways.

A small reward for participation. I’m sure there’s a parallel here with social web interaction, but I’ll let Josh or someone else who’s hot on this topic decipher it.