noCreativity.com » conference http://nocreativity.com The life and discoveries of a new media artist Sat, 07 Jan 2012 17:03:59 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 MultiMania 2009 live coverage http://nocreativity.com/blog/multimania-2009-live-coverage http://nocreativity.com/blog/multimania-2009-live-coverage#comments Tue, 19 May 2009 01:34:14 +0000 Ronny http://nocreativity.com/blog/?p=486 UDATE: The video in this post was the actual livestream I was broadcasting during the opening keynote at 2M09.

Only a few hours until 2M09 opens its doors to the conference-day. I’m attending and I’m planning on shooting some video and timelapse coverage. However since we’ve got the technology to do so, I will be doing some live coverage too (which you can watch here, in the player below)!

If you couldn’t make it to the conference, this is your chance to see some live action! I’ll post a tweet as soon as I’m going to start a stream, so keep an eye on my Twitter updates (feel free to follow me)!

]]> http://nocreativity.com/blog/multimania-2009-live-coverage/feed 4 Multi-Mania 2009: Let’s rock! http://nocreativity.com/blog/multi-mania-2009-lets-rock http://nocreativity.com/blog/multi-mania-2009-lets-rock#comments Sun, 03 May 2009 19:02:36 +0000 Ronny http://nocreativity.com/blog/?p=475 Multi-Mania 2009

With only 15 days to go it’s about time: 2M09 registrations opened up a few days ago.
Multi-Mania is one of the fastest growing multimedia fests around and it just keeps getting better. This year, for the first time ever, Multi-Mania is a 2-day event! One day full of (free) workshops. One day full of (free) inspiring, technical, creative and educational sessions.

This will be the third time I’m attending Multi-Mania and the speakerlist just blew my mind: Aral Balkan, André Michelle, Rob Chiu, Peter Elst, Serge Jespers, Scott Janousek, Sakri Rosenstrom, Rob Bateman (how is this guy’s nickname not ‘Batman’??), Niko Stumpo, Thomas Joos and many others.
It seems like there’s no end to that list… I’m blown away…

Some people mind need a reminder: An event like Multi-Mania for free starts to make look other conferences look bad… Really… Think about it for a second. A big up to Koen De Weggheleire and all the rest of the Multi-Mania crew for making this happen year after year.

Multi-Mania 2009 will take place in Kortrijk (XPO). Make sure you mark may 18th-19th as 2M09… And don’t forget to show up. ;) It’s a free event, but registration is required so make sure you don’t forget to do so.

See you there!

]]> http://nocreativity.com/blog/multi-mania-2009-lets-rock/feed 0 <head> revisited http://nocreativity.com/blog/head-revisited http://nocreativity.com/blog/head-revisited#comments Sat, 01 Nov 2008 13:20:47 +0000 Ronny http://nocreativity.com/blog/?p=192 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>

]]> http://nocreativity.com/blog/head-revisited/feed 2 Cool quotes from the <head> conference http://nocreativity.com/blog/cool-quotes-from-the-head-conference http://nocreativity.com/blog/cool-quotes-from-the-head-conference#comments Sat, 25 Oct 2008 22:37:58 +0000 Ronny http://nocreativity.com/blog/?p=180 Yea yea, there we go: My first English post on my blog. (Feel free to correct me whenever I make stupid mistakes ;) )

UPDATE: I’ve added some more quotes from day 3! <head> speakers rock!

UPDATE 2: Added some more cool quotes!

I attended the second day of the <head> conference today. At 10PM (Brussels) I tuned in on the session about Red5, presented by Chris Allen and Keith Peters. We had a lot of fun, and the session was pretty awesome (even though Chris was fighting the Red 5 server, and Adobe Connect most of the time).

During the session Chris and Keith went off, throwing out all of these crazy quotes, and I promised everybody I’d post them on my blog. Afterwards somebody (I think Patrick Welfringer) told me not to forget to post this, and asked me the URL. So here you go: Cool quotes from the <head> conference!

Day 2

Red5 is actually pretty easy to install and configure.
*Goes on, installing Red5 on his local machine. When firing up, the server fails.*
Well guys: this is what Red5 does: Absolutely nothing.

*Chris tries to reconfigure the Red5 server and fires it up again, hoping it would be fixed (which it wasn’t)*
Son of a bitch!!

*Chris is writing a Java server method and defines the method parameters*
Double a… Double b…
*Attendees start to make fun of him, referring to cup sizes*
Well that’s what it’s all about right: It’s all about getting <head>.

*After a long fight, Chris finally manages to make the Red5 server work again. An attendee writes in the chat*
Tomorrow in the newsfeeds: Adobe Connect blocks open-source alternatives.

Patrick Welfringer: man the blogs are going to be interesting tomorrow…

Attendee: drunk at work, and proud of it, well well, it gets better and better.
Attendee: note to self : apply to infrared5 tomorrow ;)

Day 3

*Paul Boag entered the room and prepared his presentation. When done, he started talking to the attendees. All of a sudden Aral pops in.*
Aral: Hey Paul! So glad to have you here. How do you like it so far?
Paul: WOW it’s amazing! I mean: I CAN SEE YOU!!!

*Paul is looking at the attendees list*
Wow, look at all those people that got up, just to hear me moan about crap! Amazing!

*Aral and Paul were both on camerastream, talking about the conference so far. All of a sudden Petro joined for a second, but immediatly left again.*
Paul: oh, another one?
Aral: Yea, Petro seemed to join there for a second… We were gonna have a threesome…
*An attendee adds the following*
Attendee: A three way head session!

*On day 2 i was already expecting the first <head> marriage proposal. On day 3 it happened… Isn’t that just plain awesome? :) *
Patrick Ording: paul i want to marry you ;-)

* Christian Heilmann is waiting for his presentation to complete the upload. While waiting he asks the attendees in the room where they come from.*
Attendee: 127.0.0.1
Christian Heilmann: Ah, we have die-hard geek here. No you don’t live at your localhost. That IS where you get your naughty pictures.

I don’t remember much more than this. If you know any others, feel free to post them/mail me :)

On another note: Day 2 was even better than day 1, as there were close to no technical difficulties. I think Aral, and the other <head> organizers are doing a great job making this thing happen. Really cool stuff.

]]> http://nocreativity.com/blog/cool-quotes-from-the-head-conference/feed 6 Eerste impressies van <head> http://nocreativity.com/blog/eerste-impressies-van-head http://nocreativity.com/blog/eerste-impressies-van-head#comments Sat, 25 Oct 2008 00:23:39 +0000 Ronny http://nocreativity.com/blog/?p=176 Dag 1 zit er na een lange avond op.
Mijn eerste gedachte is: boven verwachtingen.

De inhoud van de sessies is niet zo luchtig. Er is echt informatie en diepgang die ik anders nog niet vaak heb gezien op conferenties. Ook de sfeer is veel gezelliger; iets wat ik niet verwachtte van een evenement dat op het scherm gebeurd. De bezoekers onder elkaar zijn veel socialer met elkaar (zijn wij nu echt zo geëvolueerd dat we socialer op het web zijn, dan in het echte leven?).

Er waren in het begin enkele technische problemen, maar de organisatoren leren snel, want na de eerste sessie waren die problemen volledig weggewerkt (en de sessie met technische storingen werd later op de avond volledig met uitgebreide Q&A opnieuw live gepresenteerd). Mijn vrees dat alles zou plat gaan aan het begin van de conferentie was dus fout (maar niet ongegrond ;) ).

Wat ik vooral heel erg leuk vind, is dat de Q&A op deze conferentie veel opener is. De stap om je (al dan niet domme) vraag te stellen is veel kleiner. Ik ben echt helemaal verbaasd van het feit dat een evenement over het internet, gereflecteerd op een computerscherm interactiever lijkt te zijn, dan een live-event.

Ik ben erg goed te spreken over <head>. De eerste indruk is meestal de belangrijkste, die heeft <head> bij mij zeker gemaakt.

Een coole quote die ik opgevangen heb tijdens de eerste uren van de conferentie:

A confenrece where I can kiss my baby goodnight, and come back to it. I am liking this so far :)

]]> http://nocreativity.com/blog/eerste-impressies-van-head/feed 0 <head> conference staat voor de deur http://nocreativity.com/blog/head-conference-staat-voor-de-deur http://nocreativity.com/blog/head-conference-staat-voor-de-deur#comments Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:17:30 +0000 Ronny http://nocreativity.com/blog/?p=172 head conference bannerMorgen is het zover: De lang geanticipeerde <head> conference (voormalig Singularity) gaat van start. De eerste sessies trappen af om 18 uur lokale tijd.

De <head> conference is de eerste online conferentie op grote schaal. Organistator en oprichter, Aral Balkan, heeft hier maandenlang naartoe gewerkt. Aral heeft altijd al een aparte blik op het web en de community gehad. De <head> conference is het zoveelste project waarbij Aral de grenzen verlegt en de aanpak 180° omdraait.

Aral is in mijn ogen een van de tofste, spannendste en inspirerendste sprekers op conferenties en festivals als deze. Morgen zien we of hij ook zo goed kan presteren als organisator.

Als ik mijn ervaringen van de laatste 6 maanden op het internet, reflecteer op ‘s werelds eerste online conferentie, dan zal (volgens die ervaringen) de applicatie, waarmee de ‘bezoekers’ naar de sessies kijken, op het eerste moment van belasting plat gaan. Overbelasting is tot op heden namelijk regelmatig niet goed voorzien, laat staan überhaupt verwacht.
Een schoolvoorbeeld van ‘overbelasting’ is natuurlijk Twitter. Twitter is in 2006 en 2007 waarschijnlijk meer onbereikbaar geweest dan welke andere webservice op het internet. Ik moet eerlijk toegeven dat ik in de laatste maanden een ongeëvenaarde verbetering van de service zie. Tegenwoordig komen Failwhales veel minder voorbij, dankzij heel wat optimaliseren van de serverscripts.

Als Aral zijn huiswerk gedaan heeft zal hij geen Failwhale nodig hebben. Ik  hoop voor het alvast voor hem.

To Aral and your fellow colleagues: I’m really looking forward to the <head> conference and I wish you guys the best of luck. :)

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