HIVE Design & Development Conference

June 20-21, Seattle, WA

AIGA’s Seattle chapter brought the HIVE conference back this year with a bang, after a two-year hiatus.

Steven Chau was at helm, who got his AIGA beginnings as a volunteer after moving from Kansas City a few years ago. He, like others, sees the value in bring together designers and developers into one place to share ideas.

Over two days, speakers from around the United States shared their experiences in the fields of design, web development, user research, user experience, team and product management, storytelling, work environments, phenomenology, and strategy.

From Donte Parks’ conference kickoff showing nothing but a slide of corgis (photo proof) to Nick Finck’s (very over-the-top) keynote intro complete with “The Final Countdown,” space travel, and lasers, it was a fun weekend to learn from practitioners with something to say.

Parties

And, of course, sponsors Substantial and Google (no link needed) brought great pre- and after-party hotness, allowing attendees to meet the speakers and each other to get the most out of the weekend. Google’s treatment at Garage Billiards, complete with free food, drinks, pool, and bowling, was generous to say the least.

Takeaways

There’s too much to summarize in one post, so visit the HIVE website for speaker topics. Here are some of my takeaways:

- Collaboration breeds iteration
- Eliminate functional work silos (esp. Design & Development)
- Agile development succeeds when small teams sit together
- Great culture is essential to building better products
- Design is ever more important to core business success
- UX is about context: what users do and how they feel
- Stories and metaphors help users understand (and remember) ideas

Twitter!

And just for you, here are the Twitter accounts of all speakers in one place (alphabetically):

Jon Bell: @workjon
Ash Bhoopathy: @ashbhoopathy
Michi Broman: n/a
Nathan Brutzman: @nthnart
Steven Chau: @whereisciao
Jake Cook: @jacobmcook
Jennifer DeWalt: @jenniferdewalt
Erik Fadiman: n/a
Nick Finck: @nickf
Bill Flora: @gotectonic
Phillip Hunter: @designoutloud
Steve Johnson: @bydisgn
Deidre Kolarick: @deidrek2
Devin Liddell: @devinliddell
David Lifson: @dlifson
Yingzhao Liu: n/a
Barton McGuire: @bartonmcguire
Jenny Mullins: @pixelfat
Donte Parks: @iamdonte
Darrel Rhea: @darrelrhea
Jody Rodgers: @jodyrodgers
Dale Sande: @anotheruiguy
Melissa Scott: @hello_melissa
Albert Shum: @alshumdesign
Zach Smith: @zax_myth
Marcy Sutton: @marcysutton
Carol Taylor: n/a
Elisha Terada: @elishaterada
Thomas Wendt: @thomas_wendt

Thanks for a great conference. See you next year (hopefully)!