Birdland

This is the second part of a series based on my travels to the 2008 Webmaster Jam Session. I am writing this portion about the first day of the event as I sit at the airport ready to head home. So this is more of a recap of the past couple of days rather than a live-blog play by play, for that, check out my twitter stream.

If you want to read the first post you can read that here.

So after writing up the first post, I find myself 30 minutes later, still waiting at the airport, kicking my self for not making the last session. I’ll get over it though, there will most likely be slides up on slide share later, or hopefully the great folks at Coffeecup Software will compile a podcast again.

This is merely my take on three sessions that I found to have added the most value to me as a web developer.

Anyway, I’ll press forward. After a brief introduction by the organizer J. Cornelius, we headed off to our first session. My choice was entitled “Managing your Personal Brand.” The session was presented by Brian Oberkirch, who opened up his presentation with the very short and sweet version. That is, “Do Epic Shit.” That was very simple and to the point, if you want to build an application or anything and it is not something that is totally original and epic, you are going to have a hard time getting other people to use it.

“Do Epic Shit”

- Brian Oberkirch 2008 Webmaster Jam Session

Overall, the session was great, a couple of the key points I got out of it were:

• Fully embrace your own quirkiness
• Brand is everything and then some
• It takes long takes longer than you think. Be ready to invest yourself
• Be part of something bigger than yourself
• Don’t be afraid to ask for help

The next session that really stood out to me was one entitled “Design Disrepair” presented by Jason Beaird. Jason covered some of the basics of renovating a website as compared to renovating a home. He first went over some guidelines on deciding if a site needs renovation.

In a case where you’ve decided to renovate, Jason offered some tips based on lessons he learned from his recent home renovation. Basically they are:

• Learn the Building codes
• Set Realistic goals
• Have the right tools
• Invest your resources wisely
• Make lasting changes

This was very helpful to me because I have at times inherited websites that are in desperate need of renovation.

The third session that I really gain something from was entitled “The Web Planning Process” presented by Jason Ford. I mention this session first because although I am mainly a developer, I often find myself involved in other aspects of the design process and second because I often find myself coming up sort in this area.

Jason first posed the question: Is web planning really all that important?

The answer to that is obviously yes. I have been part of projects that have either failed or used way too many resources simply because I failed to plan.

Jason outlined a planning process that has worked for him, the main points being:

• Content Strategy - This is basically figuring out what is going to be in your website, this is done by meeting with the client and gathering requirements
• Information Architecture - Once you’ve decided on what the website needs, how will it be organized so it can be presented to the user in a way that makes sense
• Interaction Design - Once you’ve figured out how to organize your content, how will the user interact with it

Overall the sessions were great. Session topics covered a wide area of specialties. They were scheduled in a way that I was able to find a session that piqued my interest every time.