A couple weeks ago I had the tremendous opportunity to be part of the wildly popular UX Lightning series at MIX 11. The experience was simply amazing. Each session produced “sold out” crowds with people being turned away at the door.
The format used for the UX Lightning talks was certainly unique. We were given 10 minutes to deliever our content and the slides had to be auto timed. Auto timed slides was probably the best and worst part of the experience. The worst because you had to have your timing down and rehearsed. However, this resulted in the best which is concise and digestible chunks of well thought out information.
My talk was titled Good Bye Mouse, Hello Touch. It really should be been titled the Touch Renaissance because I talked about the transition from the mouse to touch interfaces and the impact this has on the future of software development. Check out the full video here.
As with all presentations, I couldn’t have done this without the help of others. The first, and foremost, is a big thank you to John Papa for having the fore site to put on the UX track and include me in the list of extremely talented presenters. I would also like to thank Ryan Taylor for helping give creative direction, James Ashely for helping fine tune the delivery, also Kyle and Shauna Bachmeier, Dennis Horton, and Chris Haldeman. And most of all my wife, Mary, for listening to me over and over and over again.
For the past three days I’ve been giving a Silverlight training. It’s always refreshing to go through the material and brush up on some areas that haven’t been touched in a while. Additionally, it’s been nice to finally be able to say some of the exciting features that are coming in Silverlight 5.
Something that has come up quite a bit, is the eagerness to learn MVVM (Model-View-ViewModel). Even in a beginner Silverlight course, people want to know. Granted, this isn’t something that should be taught on day 1, but it certainly needs to be addressed.
Unfortunately MVVM wasn’t part of the core material which included: 101, Blend/XAML, Data Binding, Data Access, Out-of-browser, and RIA Services. I’ll definitely have MVVM for the next go round. In the mean time, these are my three go to places I point people to when asking about MVVM.
Kung Fu Silverlight at PDC 2010: Patterns and Practices with MVVM and RIA Services
My WP7 loaner is off to the next dev. It was a fun week. Although I wasn't able to push apps, I spent significant amounts of time as a user. It game me a clear picture as to what to look for when getting a device.
Get a WP7 phone that has a mini USB. The proprietary plugs are silly and almost insulting to consumers.
The soft keyboard was nice, but I would seriously consider a device with a keyboard. Both the LG (with the keyboard) and Samsung models are the same size, so why not?
More to come, but for now, here are a few parting pictures:
This is such a well done stop motion video I have to share. Even the music is awesome. The small city effect is done with a tilt shift lens, too bad they’re $2,000, otherwise i would be all over it.
It’s been the usual summer in Atlanta, hot and humid. Venturing outside is like going into a sauna. Most of my days this summer have been inside working on both client work and I’m back to the grind working on a Windows Phone 7 book. My walls are covered in notes, here’s a little peak.
My project, Roundtable, is the main call to action on the home page of Microsoft’s Because it’s everybody’s business page campaign. This is the project:
Like every year, MIX will prove to be another big one for Silverlight. All the Silverlight MVP’s will be watching in some form or fashion. Unfortunately, all the Silverlight MVP’s won’t be able to make it (work, vacations, etc.) , but a number of us will be there, and some speaking. Here’s a list of the Silverlight MVP’s at MIX.
Here is what my initial schedule looks like. Each session is Silverlight focused. Unfortunately there’s no way I’ll be able to be four places at once, but I intend to come back and watch each session online once they’re available.
Social events
In addition to the sessions, MIX is about networking and spending time with new and old friends. There are many events taking place, like the attendee party at LAX, however that’s not the only one. Check out the site MIX 10 Events for a list of some of the free events taking place.
The other day I was reading Do You Still Carry Business Cards? on Lifehacker and immediately answered "Ha, NO". I just don’t see a need for business cards. If you want someone’s contact information, then you either know mutual friend or you enter their info in your phone. That said, I figured I would begrudgingly get some business cards made for MIX next week. Below are what they look like.
Initially I was going to order from Moo cards, however they require a four day processing. In true procrastinating fashion, I waited until the last minute to order. Thankfully Zazzle pulled through for me.
As for the creative, I completely bummed the idea from the Lifehacker article. Instead of using Google, I decided to use Bing. After all MIX is a Microsoft conference. Creating this card was one of the first times I’ve used Bing. Searching on Google, the first result is my site. Alternatively, on Bing the first result was my About page.
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