Why is it that I can’t get the hang of bing-drinking (spelling?). The party for @media is 2 roads away from my flat, but I can’t quite bring myself to go along and drink and be merry with the geeky throngs (note: not thongs, that would be wrong).
This did confirm one thing to me. One of the aims of moving to Soho was effortless socialising – being able to maintain a social life while commuting and being busy, with no effort required. I smiled when the venue was announced – Windmill street. There was a film made recently about the club on Windmill street, starring Judy Dench. I think it was one of the first strip clubs in Soho (although my history has much to be desired).
This is definately one of the streets, where you have to look straight ahead to avoid getting accosted by the loveable ladies in cowboy hats – what is that about btw? I never realised that cowgirls were meant to be sexy.
Anyhow, just back from the first day at @Media 2006. The session that really stood out for me was Jeffrey veen. This is why I decided to go to the event – to shed the layers of dirt that build up from day to day life and remember how interesting the work that we do really is. Jeffrey very eloquently discussed what Web 2.0 is really about. I think my favourite were the quotes from Venture Capitalists when asked to define the term – “Scaling up to many users” was one of the quotes. Oh how I laughed (I quite enjoy making fun of people who make money from technology, but don’t really understand).
I rarely see someone who is so natural a speaker, and I think he provided a very insightful view into the kind of impact that AJAX is having on interraction design and user experience.
Another highlight was Chris Wilson discussing features looming in IE7, and the approach they are taking to progessing the product. I think Chris and his team deserve applause – they are in a very difficult situation and seem to have a great attitude to progressing towards adoption of standards support. It looks like a lot of work has gone into the new version, and I look forward to the public release (apparantly in the second half of 2006).