Inspirational one-liners from Webstock
February is a very special month on Pixel Fusion’s calendar. Around mid-February every year, we and hundreds of other eager members of the design and tech industry make our annual pilgrimage, bravely traversing the hundreds of kilometers down to Wellington for Webstock. Armed with notebooks and business cards, and with Twitter already open to #webstock, we prepare ourselves for the onslaught of inspiration, insight, ice-cream and beer that is so characteristic of the two-day tech conference.
As the lights dimmed to mark the start of the first talk, my new pen (of which I’d imagine Michael Lopp would approve) hovered above my shiny new Webstock notebook in eager anticipation of the wisdom that was to come. I was determined to record every little bit of insight for posterity. However, a fact to which anyone who has ever attended a conference can attest is that the faithful note-taking doesn’t last. Over the course of the 2 days, my sentences dwindled into keywords, and my pages of elegant hand-writing thinned out until all that was left were a few barely legible scribbles. Initially, I was annoyed at my lack of skill as a scribe. However, on reflection I decided that, rather than mourning the hundreds of amazing thoughts that I didn’t write down, I should pay closer attention to those that I did. What I discovered was that I had unwittingly distilled two days of deeply insightful speeches into a couple of memorable quips. And so, I present Webstock in catchy one-liners:
To open the conference, the delightful Heather Armstrong(a.k.a. the original “Mommy Blogger”) launched us into a thought-provoking and humorous expose on social media, paid advertising and what it means to be truly authentic online. “Point the camera at the dirty side of the room,” she said, encouraging us all to present ourselves as we truly are, rather than as others expect us to be. Along similar lines, the incredibly inspirational Keavy McMinn stated, “Others may see you through their own view of your identity”, reminding us that the way others perceive us is not who we are. Her vulnerable, emotional presentation dealt with how she defined her identity in the face of unthinkable challenges. She concluded by suggesting that perhaps we should have an elastic identity — one that is adaptable and independent and that can remain strong in the face of life’s hurdles. Debbie Millman, the highly accomplished graphic designer and host of “Design Matters” chimed in to the conversation on identity with her presentation on her career journey and how rejection, and the way she handled it, shaped her life as it is today. Her bold statement, “If you aren’t getting rejected on a daily basis then your ambitions aren’t big enough,” reminded us all that failure is, actually ok. In fact it’s good for you — it teaches you to fight.
Continuing on the theme of authenticity, which emerged as one of the strongest common threads throughout this year’s conference, the charming and entertaining Nick Gray talked us through how his company’s fast-paced, untraditional tours are turning standard museum tours on their heads. “Great art can communicate through time,” he said, but how we communicate its story needs to adapt. Anna Pickard (an Editorial Director at Slack) agrees. In her delightful speech on communicating in all the smallest, most unexpected places she said, “New places to write change the way we write.” She reminded us of the power of words to not only communicate raw facts, but to convey genuine humanity and humour, and challenged us to find new opportunities to inject our products with personality.
Of course, no Webstock would be complete without some more tech-focussed presentations, and this year we had some true industry giants to look forward to. Luke Wroblewski kicked us off with his presentation “Screen Time.” He urged us to design and build digital products to cater not only to the screen’s width (as with traditional responsive design) but its other characteristics as well. “Online time is screen time,” and so it’s critical to consider the screen’s resolution, height, width, inputs and other capabilities in every project. We can optimise designs far beyond simply ensuring that they fit on the screen. Karen McGrane added to the conversation on responsive design with her exploration of adaptive content. “Don’t use a device as proxy for context,” she said. Rather than adapting content based on assumptions about the user’s context and needs, she suggested that we optimise all content for every display, ensuring that users have full access to functionality. On the point of accessibility of information, Ethan Marcotte, who coined the term “responsive design” took his ideas a step further, stating “Responsive design is an exercise in letting go“. He argued that emerging markets around the world are challenging our assumptions about “normal” context of use for our digital products. We currently design and build based on the assumption that users have fast internet connections and affordable data, new browsers and smartphones, when in reality this is not always the case. Our next challenge as designers and developers is to let go of the bloated design of modern sites in favour of lean, optimised functionality.
The Internet of Things is such a hot topic in tech at the moment that it was no surprise when it emerged as a theme at Webstock this year. Alexandra Deschamps-Sosino’s presentation on “The end of ignorance” told the story of a hypothetical young girl who grows up with access to the vast knowledge accumulated by her connected environment. “We are living in an era of information, not knowledge,” she stated of our current world, highlighting the fact that, although we collect and store vast amounts of data, we have yet to find a way to put it all together and draw truly meaningful, revolutionary conclusions. Tom Coates too has identified this problem. His discussion on the Internet of Things focussed on how we interact with and manage the plethora of new “intelligent” devices that have begun to flood our environments. Although seemingly obvious, his statement “The power of connected objects is in the connections,” highlights the importance of creating a single, unified mechanism for interacting with our connected environment, allowing it to be more powerful than the sum of its parts.
Casey Gerald mesmerised us all with a stunningly crafted performance that aptly closed out the conference. His “Gospel of Doubt”, delivered in a melodious Texas accent, encouraged us to question our beliefs and be critical of the information we hold to be true. “Our time is too short and our odds are too long to wait for second comings. There must be another way,”– his words reminded us not only to question, but to take action.
As the conference drew to a close, and the prospect of the after party, complete with champagne, glimmered on the horizon, I was struck once again by the magic of Webstock. Far more than simply a conference, it’s a retreat. The entire Pixel Fusion team came back feeling energised, inspired and ready to tackle another year with greater knowledge and deeper insight. For me, the great art of Webstock is that it doesn’t give you all the answers. It gives you questions, and challenges and empowers you to go out and find the right answers for yourself.
