Web Directions UX Melbourne

I'm very happy to have been asked to speak at the upcoming Web Directions conference in May. The conference has a focus on User Experience, and includes a great speaker list (aside from me :)

Here's the official blurb, and the list of speakers:
Web Directions User Experience is a full day two track conference, plus an optional extra day of workshops, focussing on concepts, technologies and techniques for building great user experiences on the web.

Workshops: May 15
Conference: May 16
http://ux08.webdirections.org/

* Andy Budd (Clearleft) - Interaction design and usability
* Robert Hoekman Jr (Miskeeto) - User experience evangelist
* Lisa Herrod - User testing
* Emily Boyd (Remember the Milk) - Ajax techniques for great user experiences
* Cameron Adams - Frontiers of Javascript (workshop)
* Donna Maurer - Getting content right
* Jackie Moyes (News Digital Media) - Turning research into products
* Oliver Weidlich - Mobile web user experience
* Steve Baty - Analysing research data
* Mathew Patterson (Campaign Monitor) - Designing for email

Need to convince the person who writes the cheques? Try downloading our executive summary:

http://www.webdirections.org/downloads/Web_Directions_User_Experience.pdf

Mark your calendars: this one looks like a great conference.

One month in...

So it's been a month since Meld Consulting did it's first piece of work. Some thoughts so far:
- I've had more work than I thought I would. This is a good thing;
- Administrative work needs to be done steadily or it gets out of hand quickly - at which point it also becomes remarkably tedious;
- I haven't had as much time to read, write, or plan as I would like. This is something I really need to work on.
- I need to get better at scheduling my projects, setting deadlines and work schedules. Not that I've missed anything, but the amount of work is building and I can see that I need to get better at this part of the job.
- I've been happy to receive work from a number of different sources, although that exacerbates the other issues with scheduling & administration.
- I'm enjoying myself more than I thought I would.

So all in all, it's been a good first month.

8 things you didn't know about me

Nascent author, IA, & friend Donna Maurer tagged me for the '8 things you didn't know about me' meme. The rules are simple:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules
2. List EIGHT random facts about yourself
3. Tag EIGHT people at the end of your post and list their names
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged

Some things you didn't know about me:

1. I can play a range of musical instruments (more or less rusty on each of them) including bass guitar, flute, clarinet, saxophone & trombone;
2. I practice calligraphy and have an interest in pens. My collection of fountain pens includes feather quills, retro '40s celluloid, some more conventional fountain pens and a glass stylus from Florence;
3. I once spent three weeks driving from Port Augusta in South Australia to Darwin in the Northern Territory, locating, surveying, photographing & documenting the colonial & indigenous artifacts at each of the telegraph repeater stations through the central Australian deserts.
4. When I was a boy I couldn't decide whether to be a doctor, mathematician or archaeologist. As an adult I've been able to try my hand at each of them.
5. As a 7yr old I set a record for shot-put for my local region. The record stood for 18 years.
6. I've nearly died twice - once during birth; once in 2002 (an infection had eaten a hole from my middle ear into my cranium).
7. I'd love to learn to speak French. As a nominally-educated person I feel the lack of a second language keenly. It would also allow me to read french literature.
   
8. My first car was a mini. I had it 5 months and then my older brother rolled it down a ditch and wrecked it (accidentally - he fell asleep).

Now for those 8 others I'd be interested to learn a little more about:

• Lisa Herrod - smart, chic usability chick, and her soon-to-be-husband Lachlan Hardy - a good & smart fellow in his own right.
• Shane Morris - because although I've known him a long time, I really don't know him much at all;
• Russ Weakley - so I know something other than what comes out during a drinks break at a WSG meeting
• David Malouf - any fan of both Stargate SG-1 & Battlestar Galactica is worthy of further scrutiny
  
• Pabini Gabriel-Petit - my editor at UXMatters of whom I know very little aside from her grammatical skills & penchant for sci-fi TV
• and the two Dans - Dan Saffer & Dan Brown - two of the IxD community leaders I'd like to know better