Saturday 01 November, 2008
<head> revisited
Man, I can’t believe it’s been a week already since the first edition of <head> kicked off. This event was so freaking amazing, I don’t even know where to start.
Okay, let’s just start right from the beginning. At first I didn’t really feel quite comfortable about the ‘online room’ concept. I remember having these meetings in Connect rooms, and believe me: those are horrible memories. Fact is: When I entered a room, 2 attendees were already there and they were having this conversation…
Attendee 1: Hmz, aren’t we kinda early?
Attendee 2: Yea… True… Oh well, at least we’ve got good seats, right?
It kinda made me smile and I realized how much fun this would become. A few minutes later the first session started. Tom Hughes-Croucher was about to start his session about Making your web service behave like the web, but he had to deal with some audio issues. By the end of the first session everything went smoothly. The crew had done a great job fixing all kinds of stuff. Very impressive.
After 2 more sessions people in the chatrooms started to know each other a bit. That changed about everything. There started to be a very cosy atmosphere which caused a lot of fun during the sessions and in between.
The cool thing about this completely new concept is that every attendee is in direct contact with the speaker. That puts you in a pretty cool position, because you get to ask any question you like without interrupting the speaker. Better yet: the speaker can get to these questions immediately, or chose to answer those questions later on.
The same thing can be said about the Q&A at the end of every session: Everyone got to ask his quesions, and most speakers tried to answer all of them. I’d say that was one of the best things of <head>.
The 3 days of this magnificent conference went by way too fast. I learned so much about how Youtube works, about Red5, about Papervision3D and so many other things. And the fact that I could just skip a session and go out to my usual restaurant with my girlfriend, and come back home to watch the next session made it even more complete. I had some bad luck at one point which caused me to miss a session about visualizing sound.
But nothing to be worried about: As we speak, some of the recorded sessions are already online! So everyone who missed out on something, can just tune in to those recordings.
I really have to say: Aral and his crew did an awesome job organizing this conference, and making it a very streamlined experience. I mean: this was an online event. About 70 speakers all around the world were coördinated at the same time, during 3 days. Some people might not know, but that’s an incredible job!
Only bad thing about <head>: 8 hours straight of high-end sessions on a computer screen is too much. At some point I really felt the need of having a lunchbreak halfway the ‘day’.
Something else I missed was the social contact with the speakers: Even though you got to speak to them during the session, it was not the same as if you were in the room talking to them.
Even though Flash Media Server totally rocks, Adobe Connect is far from perfect and sure could use some more work. One of the things I really missed were user profiles with social web integration (like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, etc), so attendees could easily stay in touch by just clicking the according buttons instead of posting your Twitter profile all the time. I think the out of the box functionality of Adobe Connect just doesn’t do justice to the rest of the conference.
Last thing (and this really disappointed me): There were no local hubs in Belgium. Why not? Lots of people in Belgium were attending the conference. I would’ve loved to meet some new people at a local hub, and see some community speakers.
Let’s be clear about this: <head> 2008 was a success, not to mention the fact that this was the first edition. I’m sure the <head> team got tons of feedback which will make the 2009 edition even better. I’m already looking forward to it, because this might become one of the coolest events of the year.
Good job guys, and good luck for the upcoming edition.
And to everyone I met at the conference: I hope to see you guys again next year!
</head>
Nice post !
I’m sure lots of bloggers had some trouble with the name while writing their blogpost about the conference
Really looking forward to next <head> event. In my opinion, it should be a more than once-a-year event, let’s say a <head> event every 3 months or so.
Furthermore, I agree on the fact that attending conference for 8 hours a day, during 3 days is a bit too much of it. Even with no traveling/hotel hassle.
My conclusion is, next <head> event should definitely take place ASAP, (can’t wait till next Octobre!) let’s say next January, but shorter in time span, and have one every few months or so. And we should have a Belgian hub. Definitely!