vanderwal.net

Post SXSW Reality Change

Getting back from SXSW Interactive is normally a filled with feeling empowered and excited after hanging out with many like minds. This is normally followed by severe reality slap between my mind/soul and my pocketbook. I want to dive in and build and iterate projects, but where I was was not there in that same space I was there bringing them up to where things were in years past and older (sometimes expired) best practices.

I had thought this year I was going to have a similar experience to that of Ethan of feeling a let down not having people to talk to about the experience. Somehow I have kept the high from SXSW, in-fact I have been filling in the gaps on panels I did not make it to and deeply wished I had made it to by reading other's reviews and presenter's slides.

I think my changed experience is largely due to changing my surroundings this past year to focus on clients that really want to build services and a web that goes beyond the page and resonates in people's lives so that what they offer can be used and reused as people actually want and need to do in their life. As well I have been doing the same around tagging and folksonomy, which blends into social networking and refindability. Lastly I dove back into a project that I have been working on since November of last year, thanks to my trip to London, which is where the light went on and the project started getting framed and built in spare time (with the help of another with a tiny slice of time).

I have been increasingly putting my developer hat back on and scratching my own itch, while pulling in resources to make all of this come to life. SXSW helped put this into perspective. Now I just need to get my taxes and other corporate administrative stuff out of the way to build and finish preparing for the IA Summit in Vancouver, BC

SXSW Interactive and Austin BarCamp Overview

This year's SXSW was incredible. It started out a little overwhelming as I realized there were six distinct groups that I hang out with and they don't really intermix. But, this all worked out, as by Sunday I realized that there was enough time to spend time with each group. SXSW has always been the place I escape to so to have wonderful conversations and to hang with many like minds. This year was did not let me down, in fact there were many like minds.

The Tagging 2.0 panel I was on seemed to have gone well, based on the comments that followed. (My presentation with diagram will be posted in a week or so.)

BarCamp Austin

I went over to the BarCamp Austin and had a wonderful time for the hour or so I hung out there. I was a little late for Tara's "Marketing your project: Cluetrain style presentation, but I really enjoyed what I heard. I also got to finally meet Chris Messina and thank him for making the original BarCamp enjoyable and accessible for those of use that were attending virtually (he walked the laptop around when the people moved

Best Take Away Ever

My favorite part of SXSW Interactive this year was not only getting to meet Bruce Sterling (finally), but having him sign my copy (or one of them) of his Wired Magazine article on folksonomy and myself, ":Order Out of Chaos". I got a kick out of the "Dr. Folksonomy".

When you get a chance go grab the podcast of Bruce Sterling's closing remarks, which were stellar and moving.

Killer Digits for the Pocket or Hip

This year, not only did the official SXSW site have a wonderful service to for their pushing their schedule (only the things you want) to your mobile device, but there were other great tools used enforce. It seemed many people had logged into Dodgeball for Austin, a mobile service that lets you know where your friends are and lets you ping the service to share your location. This made connecting with your friends at the right party, restaurant, or bar really easy (I do not normally have a use for this at home). I also used Upcoming to track the events I had interest in and then push them to my phone so I had the time and location with me at all times.

This is a really great example of moving information that is of value out of the web and into our real lives. As a web developer I realized years ago that most of the information that is on the web is not really usable or reusable as it is not structured to be used in the place or context where it makes most sense. Most people do not live their lives on the web they live them in the real world. Information and media must be built with this understanding.

Tagsplosion and Sleep

SXSW Interactive has been quiet good so far. I was elated to see all of the people that turned out for the tagging panel yesterday and great follow-on questions.

The best thing was I got more than 8 hours of sleep last night. I have not had more than 5 for many days. I am really looking forward to what the added sleep will bring.

Upcoming Presentations and Conferences

Things have been a little busy around these parts, but activity and early Spring allergies will not keep me from letting you know that the road show is beginning again.

SXSW

I am heading off to SXSW Interactive to participate in Tagging 2.0 Panel where we will discuss growth, changes, and new ideas in the realm of tagging.

I will also be hanging out with the Web Standards Project (WaSP) people as we are having our WaSP Annual Meeting open to the public.

This year looks to have some killer content at SXSW, not that it has not in the past, but there are more things than ever that I am interested in attending. I certainly hope they found larger spaces this year. Usually the corridors are overly enticing, but the session rooms could pose a challenge this year. I am looking forward to hanging, chatting, learning, and recharging my web vibe.

IA Summit

I am headed to the IA Summit in Vancouver, British Columbia later in March. I am on the Wireframing Challenges in Modern Web Development panel, which I will be moderating Nathan Curtis, Livia Labate, Bill Scott, and Todd Warfel. We will be looking at the wireframing challenges and solutions of the current web.

I am also presenting my IA for Efficient Use and Reuse of Information. As the web 2.0 meme rings out we realize there is a greater need beyond that as people actually want to use and reuse the information in their own personal information workflows and not always in one web application. I will focus on granular content inventories as well as how to identify content objects for information reuse and set the structure of that information for better use and reuse.

I am incredibly happy to see that Kevin Chang (along with Jane Jao) are presenting Communicating with Comics as a panel as well as a full day workshop. This could be the hidden golden nugget at the IA Summit.

XTech

I will be heading to Amsterdam, Netherlands for XTech in May. I am presenting "Developing for the Personal InfoCloud" on Thursday May 18. I will be discussing the Model of Attraction and Come to Me Web as foundations to focus on building for personal use and reuse of digital information and objects.

Microlearning Conference 2006

I will be one of the keynote speakers at the Microlearning Conference in Innsbruck, Austria held on June 8-9, 2006.

More to Follow

There are a few more that will be added shortly. I am also keeping busy with in-house presentations on the Come to Me Web, Personal InfoCloud, Folksonomy, and other related topics. If you would have an interest in having me present at your conferece, workshop, or an in-house event please contact me.

Off to London Oxford and Brighton

I am off to London, England tonight. I will be in Oxford Sunday night and through lunch Monday. I will be in London Monday afternoon through Thursday early afternoon. I am in Brighton Thursday late afternoon through Friday morning. Friday I am back to London to Saturday Morning.

I am speaking at Online Information on Wednesday on the topic of folksonomy. I have a handful of other gigs during the days along with seeing some of London that was not there when I lived in England in 1988. I am most interested in chatting, listening, and seeing people. Give a shout if you have an interest.

I am reachable by the usual e-mail.

Europe Presentations

I am late in posting the links to my two presentations given in Europe. I presented the Personal Digital Convergence as the opening keynote to the SIGCHI.NL - HCI Close to You conference. I have also posted the final presentation, IA for the Personal InfoCloud, at the Euro IA Summit 2005.

MIT Technolgoy Review Emerging Tech Conference Aftermath

I had a great time at the Technology Revirew's Emerging Technologies Conference. It was odd for me as I have not been purely an attendee at a conference in a few years, but this worked very well. The panels and speakers were fantastic and many of those who spoke were around for meals and other events. The conversations were fantastic and I am just getting back to those I met to follow-up (as I am preparing for two presentations, setting up a business, and a few other items that have pulled my attention in recent weeks).

I have to say the Technology Review staff deserves a giant applause as they are simply wonderful people who are bright and energetic about the subjects they cover.

Off to TR Emerging Tech Conference at MIT

Tomorrow afternoon I am off to Cambridge, MA to attend the Technology Review's Emerging Technologies Conference at MIT. I am really looking forward to this, as I will see some familiar faces and get a slightly different view to the tech world than I have had before, with nanotech and stem cell panels combined with the digital world I live in.

Added Speaking at EuroIA to Fall Tour

I now have a fourth speaking engagement in Europe this Fall. I will be presenting, "IA for the Personal InfoCloud" at the European IA Summit 2005 in Brussels. I am really looking forward to this event with the breadth of penetration of broadband and mobile in Europe they are currently dealing with and working to find solutions around the problems I foresaw that have been driving me to work on the Personal InfoCloud and its related frameworks.

The European IA Summit follows the SIGCHI.NL HCI Close To You keynote the previous Thursday. The keynote will largely be a new presentation.

I am deeply humbled and excited by these opportunities. Getting the opportunity to present to an audience who has an advanced market dealing with the issues of cross platform and devise design will be wonderful. I am looking forward to the feedback and taking in the life in Europe again.

I will also be presenting at Design Engaged in Berlin and Online Information in London, both in November.

Barcamp UK

It looks like the UK has caught barcamp fever in the manifestation of barcamp UK. This is utterly brilliant how this is spreading.

I have a small design gathering I went to last year in Amsterdam and will be attending again this year in Berlin. Last year's utterly wrecked me in a wonderful way. All of the work and playing with ideas and solutions to problems that were manifesting on the web were echoed by others and it was a great experience that gave me more energy to pursue my Model of Attraction and Personal InfoCloud work of designing across platforms and devices for people to use and reuse information more easily. One of the areas that has been problematic is the integrating desktop broadband and mobile use of the same services and information/media. Many people have been finding the Personal InfoCloud a good framework to think and design for this reality and one of the areas where this is really of interest of late is Europe (hence, my three trips there and four conferences where I will be presenting).

Best of luck to Suw as she leads the way. Go help her as you will be quite glad you did.

BarCamp is Rocking the Free World

I started following BarCamp on IRC, Flickr, and streaming video. Today I was able to participate in one of the discussions. This is one of the better things I have done lately directly on the web.

It has not been perfect as people go outside and gather, but nobody takes the streaming camera. It is like not having legs, or other communication means.

Go follow along. You are invited.

Fall Tour - Intitial Europe Stops Announced

I will let you in on the beginnings of my Fall Tour, which is still developing at this time. There will be a European flavor, which will be very good as the markets there are in the midsts of developing for robust cross-platform usage by people trying to connect their digital lives across devices. The mobile market is far more mature than in the United States and with broadband penetration rates over 50 percent in many European countries (through the help of government funding to make this a priority of their infrastructure and therefore a public good) the usage is driving richer media design perspectives. I am excited to have the opportunities to present and investigate more in these advanced digital life markets.

The European part of the Fall Tour (as it stands today with more stops still possilbe):

• SIGCHI.NL HCI Close to You, Opening Keynote, 13 October 2005, The Hague, Netherlands
• Design Engaged 2005, 11-13 November 2005, Berlin, Germany
• Online Information Folksonomy panel, 30 November 2005, London, UK

I am open to meeting, working, and presenting around these times in locations "relatively" close and I will most likely be flying in and out of Amsterdam for all portions of this tour, and yes each gig is its own trip. I may be in London and surrounding environs for a few days surrounding my panel.

Quiet, Not for Long

Things are going to be quiet here for a few days...

Right, okay. We are fine on this end, but have just been a wee bit busy. We will be filling you in on the Fall Tour in a few days as we have been setting the initial groundwork for travel and blocking out dates.

In the short term Thomas is off the the Jersey Shore for "rest" and relaxation. Oh, since the Jersey Shore is in close proximity...

Right, okay. Thomas will be in the San Francisco Bay Area on Tuesday the 9th to speak on the BayCHI - Are you ready for Web 2.0? panel. Drop by and say hello.

Speaking at BayCHI August 9th

I will be in the San Francisco Bay Area August 9, 2005 to speak on the BayCHI - Are you ready for Web 2.0? panel. This will be at the PARC's George E. Pake Auditorium (formerly known as Xerox PARC). I am looking forward to the panel and being back in the Bay Area.

Did I mention I am only on the ground for 12 hours? I am flying in from vacation on the New Jersey Shore, but it will be worth it. I have a couple places I need to stop, but shoot me e-mail to meet-up or let me know you will be going to the panel. I have a long string of things to get to in the Bay Area that have been building since January, but this will not be the trip to knock all of them out.

I really need to get to the Bay Area more often, it is home (well where I was born and spent much of my life there).

Say Hey - If I Knew

I have a deep love of digital technology as an assistive devise and even an enabling device. But, I need something that sits between the digital and the real so to join those worlds.

Here is the problem... I am continually not blanking at who somebody I know in a digital context (through e-mail, a social networking tool (one that works), listserves, blogs, etc.), but their face or just lack of some means of connecting those I know to who they are physically. It continually happens at conferences or when traveling. This happened three times to me at WebVisions with Matt May, Erin Kissane, and Kris Krug. With all three it took some time before it clicked, fortunately with Matt it clicked while I still had time to draw the lines. I would have loved to have chatted with Erin and Kris with the context of how I know them firmly in place. Part of the problem it did not register to me that they were going (I am not sure I checked close enough to the event Upcoming to see who was going to I could make a mental note (or otherwise) to say hey.

What would the solution be? The gap between digital and physical must close. I need my address book crossed with my digital social networks and get all of the pieces tied together with one identity that I can track. Sure everybody can keep their 16 screen names across different communities, but we need to aggregate those to one identity when it makes sense, such as meeting in person. I have been told Sxip can handle this, but I have not had the time to track that down.

The next step is to take the aggregated identity and go through events I am attending or places traveling and let me know who will be there. I am not see this as a privacy issue as there are established friend relationships and set with parameters of securely allowing access to our information, or it has be made public. I usually have a mental list of who I want to see and talk to prior to events, but that group is growing. There is also a group of people I normally only see at events and I always try to hang with that "floating island", but I am usually in contact with them long before.

It seems like a tool like Upcoming would be a perfect place to do this for a large chunk of events. It will still take aggregating the identities across all of the digital communities I belong, address books, and in-person communities. I would love for the next step to include an application in my mobile device that tipped me off to somebody on my friendly "say hey" list being with in "hey" range.