An overview

Build is a new conference for web designers and this was its first edition.

The speakers’ lineup was what caught my attention at first, and the fact that it is easy enough to get to Belfast from London also helped.

It was brilliantly organised by Andy McMillan plus some nice volunteers.

Quick recap and review of the presentations

Tim Van Damme, “Passion”

Photo by belfastkeith

Presentation on Slideshare

Tim spoke about the passion that drives him and told us how to explore and use that passion. He also gave some handy tips on how to work better and, most important, how to properly open a banana.

This was Tim’s first presentation at an event of this size, and what a start! I’ve told him personally how awesome the presentation was, but I’m saying it again. The content was interesting and presented in an interesting way. We were on to a great start…

Andy Budd, “Seductive Design”

Mr Budd taught us how we can apply the art of seduction in our designs. His presentation included striptease, dancing, partial nudity and the throwing of free toys (sorry, Russell, you’ve been surpassed).

It was witty, clever, engaging and basically perfect.

I think this was when the audience started to realise that we were in for a treat with Build…

Mark Boulton, “Font Embedding and Typography”

I had already seen a version of Mark’s presentation at Future of Web Design London, earlier this year, but it was still to remember. He spoke about typography on the web, how we can work with constrains and what the future may look like. Also, lots of hints to Andy Budd’s and Clearleft‘s upcoming FontDeck.

Ryan Sims, “The Playing Field: Practice Makes Pixel-Perfect”

After letting us know in detail how he was supposed to have been a successful basketball player, Ryan talked about how talent is directly related to practise. Another fabulous presentation that won the award for Best Slides Design (at least in my opinion).

By this time, my head was hurting—the content was too good for it to take it all in at once.

Wilson Miner, “Design & Build: How to be an effective hybrid”

Wilson explained how he thinks we should lean in to other interests we might have, not only be a designer or a developer, but be a hybrid

The message was delivered in the form of some very sleek slides with transitions that made us all drool (was that Keynote, Wilson?). It was that good.

Eric Meyer, “A More Tangled Web”

You can’t really go wrong when the final speaker of your conference is Eric Meyer, can you?

Mr Meyer spoke about what he thinks the future of the web will be, how it will leave the browser and even the computer more often, and how plugins will be replaced by scripts.

Praise

And with the ending slide, I believe most of us were already penciling the conference in for next year. Andy got a standing ovation, and we left for the pub.

We were happy.

I didn’t hear any negative comments in the corridors or on Twitter, like it happens most of the times at these events. No-one was annoyed at being pitched by sponsors, because we weren’t.

Even the lack of proper wifi was overlooked—give us free tea and coffee without the hassle of coupons and we’ll be fine (no herbal tea though, Andy…).

Basically, Build pushed all the right buttons: the speakers were great and approachable, we didn’t feel like we were inside a big pitch, and there was actually free beer during the whole night at the after party!

People

Everyone was amazing: speakers, attendees, volunteers. But that isn’t really any different from the other conferences—web folks are generally a very nice faction of the population.

As usual, I had the pleasure of catching up with people I already knew and meet some great new people.

To name a few: Andy, Si, Nik, Eamonn, Maykel, Lee, Paddy, Sam, Standardistas, Dave, João, Nuno, Jonathan, Eric, Andy, Tim, Paulo, Daniel, Martin, Bruno, David, Ian, Jason, Colin, Heather.

The future

The future looks bright for Build. If the speakers’ lineup is as good as this year’s and the same care goes into the planning, I’m sure a lot more people will be interested in attending.

The fact that it was in Belfast, in my opinion, contributed to its character as a smaller high quality conference.

So, I’ll make mine Andy’s words and say that, indeed, Build was “fucking lethal”. Bravo!

Other #buildconf recaps

• Build Conference Recap, by FRONT
• Belfast Builds Giants
• Build Conference – My experience graph, by Sam Brown
• #buildconf: The Greatest Web Design Conference The World Has Ever Seen, by Lee Munroe
• Building A Better Web in Belfast, by Maykel Loomans
• Built, by Web Standardistas

Note: I’ll update this post with links to the presentations as the links start coming up online.

Some useful tips

I’ve just came back from this year’s dConstruct, in Brighton, and while the social experience around the event met my higher expectations—and following my previous article on How To Always Enjoy A Conference—I thought I’d compile a short list of quick tips for all you speakers out there.

1. Make us laugh

Photo by Foxtongue

That’s it plain and simple. The more laughs you get from the audience (not at you, but with you) the stronger their perception that you’ve done a good job.

And how can you make us laugh? Tell us funny anecdotes about your professional or personal life (but they have to apply to the subject of your talk); make reference to popular geek cultural icons; tell inside jokes, that only someone within our business would understand. You can also press the right buttons by mentioning well-know pet peeves, like Twitter being always down, or Jakob Nielsen not having an RSS feed.

2. Ask questions that we had never asked ourselves

Photo by Luke Stearns

So besides making us laugh, you should also make us think. Make us think about issues we had never thought about, make us look at something from a different perspective and question things that we take for granted or that are dogmatic.

3. Make controversial remarks

Photo by pugetive

Challenge assumptions; have strong opinions about issues that we usually assume to be set in stone. Don’t be afraid of expressing your opinion but don’t forget to back it up with good evidence.

4. Be practical

Photo by soundfromwayout

It’s good to stop and think about some issues on a more theoretical or even academic way. But when someone attends a web design (or development) conference, they are usually looking for something that they can take back home with. We’re looking for ideas that will make us work better, improve our work flow, making us look really good and clever! You need to make the audience think, at some point during your presentation: “Hey, I can use that!”. This is what people will remember your presentation for.

5. Sprinkle your presentation with interesting facts

Photo by marcopako 

You can use clever quotations; useful or amusing research results; provide us with suggested readings, etc. We like to know that you’ve really taken the time to do your homework.

6. Multimedia

Photo by a shadow of my future self

In order to make your presentation have a faster pace (and this is vital) try adding short video clips and music to it. Seinfeld has proven to be a good choice.

What not to do

One of the main issues with most presentations is the monotone voice that the speaker adopts throughout. Make an effort to add some enthusiasm to your words, change tone, accentuate interrogations.

Photo by Grevel

Avoid using complicated words. Not even TED talkers use them (at least not the good ones). You’ll sound like a fool, and make us think we’re dumb for not knowing what they mean.

Do not, I’ll repeat: DO NOT just show us your portfolio. Showcasing your portfolio and not making it sound really overwhelming will make you lose many points with the audience. That’s “Speaking at a conference 101”.

The same applies to just mentioning stuff I could have read on your blog. Some people do subscribe to and read blogs and they are probably in the audience.

Know your topic well so you don’t have to read from a script. You should have a very good idea of what you’ll be saying and have some sort of guideline to your presentation, but watching a speaker constantly go back to his or her notes is a big turn-off.

Another no-no on presentations is being one of the sponsors. No matter what you do, most of the audience will basically tend to ignore you like an ad (with very few exceptions to brands like Apple or Lolcats).

Avoid presenting before lunch. You’ll have to double your efforts in order to grab the attention of the audience. At that time of day, we’re basically a herd of hungry zombies with our minds on one thing and that thing is food.

In case of emergency

There are few things that will always get a laugh from the audience. These are the surefire ways of gaining a few extra points. You can scatter them around your presentation, or use them at a desperate time, if you feel you’re losing them.

1. Bash Microsoft

Any bad remark about Microsoft will result on at least a few giggles. You can comment on the previous speaker’s technical problems (if they were using a PC) or make any kind of comment on how Windows sucks.

2. Lolcats

Pick a truly funny lolcat and add it to your presentation. It will provide your audience with a nice kodak moment, and it will give you a few extra seconds to think what to say next.

3. Clips from Star Trek, Star Wars or The Big Bang Theory

The first two don’t have to be funny, the third one does. Any reference to Star Trek, Star Wars, comic books, or any kind of geeky popular cultural icon will sparkle the thought that you are “one of them” among the audience.

Four good examples

Here are some good examples on how to make a proper presentation. These speakers knew exactly what the audience wanted and knew how to present it in an engaging way:

1. Joshua Davis @ OFFF 09, Lisbon

The content of this presentation isn’t groundbreaking, but Joshua presented it to us in a brilliant and colourful way.
Keywords: entertaining, engaging, funny.

2. Jason Fried @ Big Omaha 2009

I don’t particularly agree with a lot of Mr. Fried’s ideas, but the fact that he made me, a non-believer, pay attention to this whole presentation, is a good thing.
Keywords: brief, to the point, useful, practical, controversial.

3. Ben Huh @ Future of Web Apps 2008, London

Not a single person that I’ve spoken to about this presentation had high expectations, but everyone was very pleased with it afterwards.
Keywords: lolcats galore, funny, controversial, practical, inspiring.

4. Jina Bolton @ Future of Web Design 2007, London

I’m yet to see another presentation at Future of Web Design conferences that proves as useful as this one. Back in 2007, Jina presented us with some very cool bits of CSS3 that we are all still struggling to actually use.
Keywords: useful, foreseeing, brief.

Do you know of more engaging, interesting and useful presentations? Leave your favourites in the comments section.

Conclusion

I hope you find this useful! I’m certainly not trying to say presentations should be basically a circus show with fireworks. I just want to, as a spectator, have a good time before, during and after the events.

Remember: you will never please everyone, but you should shoot for the stars. Set the bar high and be original (easier said than done).

There will always be those people who are never pleased with anything. Even if you’re making the presentation of the century, not everyone will like it, at least one person will yawn, you will get mean comments on Twitter (I wouldn’t read the backlog if I were you) and someone will not like the typeface you’ve picked for your slides.

If there is only one thing you take from this post, remember: never be the last speaker before lunch break.

Useful links

These links have a lot of good and proper advice to speakers (not rant-like, like this one). All of them are worth reading:

• How I Made My Presentations a Little Better—43 Folders
• Top 10 Best Presentations Ever
• Deliver a Presentation like Steve Jobs—BusinessWeek
• Everything I Know About Presentations, I Learned in Theatre School
• Really Bad Powerpoint—Seth’s Blog
• How to Present While People are Twittering
• Note & Point

UPDATE:
For some more great presentations, check out my post about Build Conference — you won’t be disappointed.

My experience

So far I’ve been to two Future of Web Design conferences and one Future of Web Apps, all of them organized by Carsonified, and all of them in London.

When I first attended Future of Web Design, in 2008, I wasn’t living in London, and I had to pay for everything myself: ticket, flights, hotel and expenses. I didn’t regret having spent that money for a second!

Are conferences really worth it?

My advice is try it at least once. The feeling of being in a room with dozens or even hundreds of people that share your vision and are interested in the same things as you is great, and you won’t be getting it anywhere else.

I’m usually a bit disappointed about the content itself though: my expectations can be a bit too high, I suppose. Even though some presentations have inspired me to go home and do something amazing, a big percentage of the speakers focuses too much on their own portfolios and their companies and on a “how good we are” theme instead of “how good you can be”.

But there are some real gems occasionally. For example:

• Andy Budd, Clearleft @ Future of Web Design 2008: “Designing the User Experience Curve”
• Ben Huh, ICanHasCheezburger.com @ Future of Web Apps 2008: “How to take your community to the next level”
• Jina Bolton @ Future of Web Design 2007: “CSS3 And What Could Be”

If your company doesn’t pay for you to go to conferences, first, they suck, second, pick a cheaper, local or a free event, save some money, book flights and hotels (if needed) in advance, share expenses with a friend, couchsurf, do whatever it takes, but just go. And maybe if you bring something valuable from the experience that you can share with your colleagues, they’ll see that it is a good investment and pay you to go next year.

Convinced? Go do some homework before you go!

Prepare before you go: whether you’re going alone or with someone else. The main purpose of these events is to network, so if you go with 3 friends and meet no one else, where’s the fun in that? You could’ve just gotten the same results with a couple of hours at the pub next door.

It’s good to know who’s going and have some names of people you’d like to meet, be it because you like their work, are interested in their specific area of expertise, or just find them interesting in some way.

Search on Twitter, Upcoming (also a great tool to look for events to attend) and Facebook — this should give you enough information about who’s coming. A lot of people are in the same situation as you and looking for someone to hang out with, so it’s OK to pop them a dm on Twitter or write a message on the wall of the Facebook event’s page.

The first time I attended FOWD by myself, I didn’t know a single soul. I searched mainly on Upcoming.org and on the event’s list of attendees for people who were in the same situation as me, and I even got a couple of emails from other people who were doing the same. It was less scary than just showing up at the pre-party all by myself.

Make business cards. You don’t have to spend a lot of money and it’s something people can keep and that will remind them of you. They don’t have to be amazing, but it helps!

Here are some of the business cards I’ve been handed in the last couple of years:

Are you there yet? What to do during the event?

Twitter. It’s mainly a good thing. If you’re going, I advise you to start using it, you may feel left out and it’ll be easier to know where people are and what fun things are happening that you wouldn’t know otherwise. You can easily find someone’s username online but not their mobile number.

But Twitter can also be a major distraction during the presentations and a bad thing, especially if you’re a speaker! The audience can (and is) merciless and they won’t refrain from telling how your presentation sucks (you’ll have to be particularly thick-skinned if you’re from Microsoft!):

If I ever were to talk at a conference, I’d make sure I didn’t check the live stream during my presentation, or I’d probably burst into tears…

In conclusion, Twitter is, no doubt, the main tool to use while at a conference. That and a mobile phone.

Meeting people

Don’t be shy and go talk to someone. This is where the preparation comes in hand, because if you already know someone online, it’s much easier to go to them and say “Hey! Are you [insert username/real name here]? I’m [insert username/real name here]! Nice to finally meet you!”. Exchange business cards, and the rest will come up by itself.

I have a friend who’s very good at grabbing people that are clearly alone and starting a conversation with them. It’s good to see how they always seem to be relieved of not being by themselves anymore. :)

Demystify the concept of internet celebrities. This is easier said than done, but it’s true that most of them are very accessible, and as lovely as the rest of us and wouldn’t mind having someone to talk to for 5 minutes. Just tell them how and why you like their work, how pleased you are to finally meet them, and how they have inspired you. Ask about how they’re liking the conference or the city so far, and you’ll have enough things to talk about for some good 5 or 10 minutes.

Follow up

Don’t forget to keep in touch with your new acquaintances: use Twitter (the easiest way), follow their work, subscribe to their blogs. Sending follow-up emails can also be a good idea: pick a few people you’re really interested in keeping in touch with and send them a nice reminder of yourself.

And do something with what you’ve learned: go do more research on a subject that grabbed your attention, create something new, start your own projects. If you didn’t learn anything, why not make sure you’re a speaker the following year and do a better job at it!

Remember: next time will be even better!

Where I’ll be next

This week I’ll be attending OFFF Lisbon 09. As usual, my expectations are higher than high, and I really hope Lisbon is as sunny as it usually is! :)

Hopefully I’ll also be able to go to Future of Web Apps 09, in London, later this year and dConstruct 09, in Brighton. If I find the time, I’ll also try to attend SHiFT 2009, again in Lisbon.

I feel I need to go to smaller meetups around London too, so if you have any suggestions, please write them in the comments section, I appreciate it!

Conclusion

As I mentioned before, this post is based on the little experience I have, and I know that other people have different opinions about these type of events.

In my opinion, going to these events has always proven to be a positive experience, mainly for all the nice and interesting people I’ve met, and I truly believe that’s what matters in the end.

I’d love to know what’s your input on these, and how you improve your conference-experience even further.

UPDATE (6th May 2009): I am going to Future of Web Apps, in London, later this year (got my early-bird ticket today), so I’ll see you there! :)

UPDATE (19th May 2009): I just got my ticket to BuildConf, Belfast, in November. Tell me if you’re coming too!

UPDATE (9th July 2009): I will also be attending dConstruct, Brighton, in September. Who’s coming?