#PSUweb13 Takeaways
Three days in State College, PA with a bunch of web, design, and UX nerds.
The web isn’t just the web.
It never was and it never will be.
No web task happens in a vacuum. Everything is connected. Social media = IT = IA = content strategy = web. (1)
We talk a lot about the internet. Design. Content. Marketing. Mobile. Development. Audiences. All these things are common and expected at web conferences such as #PSUweb. What I didn’t expect is the sheer amount of reality bonking me over the head, with the accompanying bruises rising in the form of:
We take for granted that we’re connected (several computers, devices in our homes). 35% of Americans don’t have a home connection. (2) Think we need to think across device experiences? Print isn’t dead either for these audiences. Integrated marketing! (3) (Sorry to be such a strange bird for this web conference, but it’s all connected. Design for this stuff can’t stop with a screen.) (4)
Social media is the Internet is the world and what we say and do in this “virtual” space manifests itself in “real” space too. (5)
Common refrain of every presentation I’ve gone to today: just… talk to people. We work in tech, but PEOPLE are why we do so. (6)
It doesn’t take much to start a movement.
It started with a GIF-off.
It ended… with a dancing carrot.
Following a battle to the death over two presentations duking it out for audience members during the same time slot, Robin and Rob (my co-presenter) went at it the best way they knew how with the whole internet at their disposal: a volley of animated GIFs that took the place of traditional conversation over an afternoon. Hype for not one, but two presentations occurring within 48 hours? Done and done.
Rob live-giffed a presentation, too, with a series of well-timed looped shorts to add to his Twitter backchannel commentary. His links got clicks. And giggles. Alaina, sitting to my right (Rob was on my left), whispered to me that she would be unable to read his tweets until after the presentation because she would LOL. A real LOL, not just the idea of one embedded in our minds due to modern message abbreviations.
During our presentation, we touted the use of GIFs as a different way of communicating content as well: through back-patting congratulations for new students and an alternative method for advertising video content. Two people approached me after the presentation to ask how we found or made our GIFs. Those two asks made the whole presentationworth it: it’s a step in the right direction in my book, a move toward original (and simple) content creation for the end goal of fun storytelling.
GIFs slowly started creeping into the visual lexicon of the conference, as more and more presenters edited their slides to include a choice GIF or three, and let the king and queen of GIFs (apparently, this was Rob and myself) know that they’d edited them just for us. Our track chair found and posted her first one at the close of our presentation. The final presentation of the conference that I attended had two, both of which were prefaced with “Upon Ma’ayan’s encouragement…” — which caused me to look up quickly from my Twitter note-taking to dancing cats and carrots. They were perfect.
We’ve started a movement. In a direction. Towards the golden grail of GIFs.(7)
And yet, our presentation, as wonderful and GIF-filled as it was (not too many, actually, I believe we had 8 over the 56 slides we used), isn’t even viewable to its fullest extent because none of the online slidesharing options we have include animated GIF embeds that render as the moving image. Socially, we got this, but tech wise, not so much. An apt metaphor for the past few days, to be sure.
At some point, we become a family.
The kind where we unnecessarily argue, stay up past our bedtimes playing games, eat meals together, love each other for the silliest and sometimes the most frustrating of reasons, and generally challenge each other so we can grow.
I’m at a point where I really want to see these people outside of the three intense days riddled with ideas hitting us from every direction. The conference setting is a great enabler, but I want more people time. That means that something excellent has happened here: I walked into a room with good people and good ideas and a group of friends walked out together.
Gotten to a turning point in seeing pals at conferences that it’s just like a giant family reunion (with new relatives!) each time. (8)
Laughed a painful amount in the past 3 days. I just got off an elevator wiping tears out of my eyes. (9)
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