HTML5, CSS3, Ban Helvetica, and more... recap of #minnebar
Attended the 2009 MinneBar (un)Conference today, held at Best Buy's World Headquarters - quite an impressive place. The conference is a day long event with several rooms running concurrent sessions on tech, design, business, and general interest topics. You were free to come and go between these sessions as your interest dictated. As far as 'design' goes, I'd have to say the emphasis on most of the sessions offered in that category were focused more on 'development', but since many of us designers do both, at least to some degree, they were still beneficial and I enjoyed them. Here is a sampling of the sessions I attended:
- HTML5 & CSS3 - Mike Bollinger from livefront.com did a great job introducing many of the new API's and Structural tags, and a new doctype coming. Loved this presentation. Didn't have enough time to dig into CSS3 much, but really, stay tuned because COOL stuff coming, ya'll!!!!
- Ban Helvetica - Garrick VanBuren dissected the diagram above in a discussion about not worrying so much about 'web-safe' fonts. Great session!
- Intro to BuddyPress - Toby Cryns demonstrated how BuddyPress - a plug in for MultiUser WordPress - can allow your multi user WP sites to have internal Facebook or Ning-like social networking capabilities. Toby knows his WP!
- Assholes are Killing Your Project - Coming from a strong management background myself, I found this to be Management Skills 101, but helpful for those without that background.
- TopTrends in the Application World - Interesting statistics in this one. I have both iPhone and Droid envy..... *sigh* 1.5 years left on my BB contract.
- Job Search=SUCKS: 12 Tips to Make the Process Less Painful - Great job searching tips for today's market from Paul DeBettignies. The audience seemed pretty engaged - timely topic for many.
- Refresh Twin Cities: A Community of Designers & Developers - This was an intro session basically gathering interest in this cities chapter of Refresh. First meeting is actually Dec 7th (? dang, cant find the date in my notes, will have to look it up). This seems very, very similar to a monthly meeting I've attended for a few years with a group I belong to called TC Web Pros (Twin Cities Web Professionals). They are planning a similar format, with user input on what the areas of interest are, presentations by members and guests, and roundtable discussion time. I'll attend and check it out.
- Drupal - Samir Nassar gave a great presentation. He intended this to be an intro to Drupal, but I still get benefits every time I attend an 'intro to Drupal' session. Yep. Some things I just need to hear more than once apparently. But I felt better about this when I saw some people that are Drupal Gods/Goddesses unabashedly in there also!
- Is that a Hospital in your Pocket? - **Huge sigh** very sad to have missed this session, LOTS of forward movement happening in this area. An incoming phone call kept me from that one.
There were so many more wonderful offerings. Many of them, quite frankly, were way over my head, but perhaps by osmosis I'll absorb little bits here and there... There was great networking, food, beverages, and even beer at the end was provided. I'll be back for the next one, without question!
Also, I was able to say hello and introduce myself to Robert Stevens, founder of GeekSquad. A million years ago, when he had recently started it, I worked for a home/office furnishings company in this city, and used to sell him office furniture. Did he remember me? Of course not, nor did I expect him to. Still he made a point to chat for a moment, and was very gracious and humble, and went out of his way to greet and talk with a lot of the attendees all day and thanked them for coming.
Great day!
