I just updated to WordPress 3 – took all of 3 seconds.

Great work Ma.tt et al!

Each week, we create a new feature story that appears on the PCC homepage. This week’s story is about several new Community Education courses, including one on dog training. We needed a good photo to match the story … Fortunately, I had just the thing in my personal  archives:

Meet Plinko, my friend Fish’s border collie puppy. Below is the entire set for more puppy goodness:

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I was a bit too busy listening to take good notes, but here are a few that I wrote down :)

Get off my lawn!

Connections
1) stuff
2) people

He’s doing a “logo dump” starting back in 1995. Showing the old gap between consumers and producers.

APIs – Crazy Go Nuts!

You don’t have to obsess over code. You are free to focus on content.

Scott Porad – CTO of the Cheezburger Network

It’s not about the cats, it’s about people.

15-20,000 pictures every day submitted. Try to launch a site a week.

How did we do it?

1) If you want to get more done, then do less – simple products, stick to one thing at a time – Swarm method.

Being busy != being productive.

2) Eschew long term plans, but keep long term vision.

There are good ideas and then there are ideas you care about.

Wow, the speaker is great. Who would have thought the the cheeseburger network had such focused, intelligent, charismatic and poetic leadership?

The Future: Web 3.0
The web is going where the world has always been.

“Red is not a color”
There are so many shades of red – each with it’s own emotion.

Know the essence of why your product strikes an emotional cord.

Ward Cunningham – from AboutUs

What is a link?
“something you click to take you somewhere”

“a relation to resources, possibly 0″ – Ray Fielding

Wiki turns the zero link (red) as an invitation.

Blue – 1
Red – 0
Orange – 2+ (ambiguous, Portland OR vs Portland ME vs Portland Cement)

Social Jargon:
1) glossary of words.
2) using that word automagically links to it.
3) users learn words as they cross them.
4) words spread as they are used.

Disambiguated links use meta to track and color to show context.

Tracks word usage. Who used it first? How did if change?

James Reffell

Background: eBay, yahoo, usable security systems.

Identifiers: alphanumeric strings that relate to individuals.

Great story of how search was bringing “facebook login” to a ReadWriteWeb article. Best part is that many of the confused users were already logged in via Facebook connect on RWW. So, they succeeded – but not in a meaningful way…

Login/out is becoming a fuzzy concept.

People share computers and account – if you plan for it or not.

Average user has about 25 passwords. Average password was used for 6 different sites.

Username or email? Big systems end up using both.

Sign in vs login? Sign is slightly better.

Web form design – good book.

Very good speaker. Very good talk.

@jreffel
designcult.org

Dave Selden – doing it yourself

Up early to talk about beer!

Started with a home brewing blog in 2005 – BS Brewing.

How do you process the 2200 beers at the American Beer festival?

33 Beers

- Scout book form factor
- $1600 down, didn’t really realize the costs.
- Not the fist with the idea, but first to follow through.

Dave opens a beer (9:30am) to shoe us how the rate system works.

Started by sending samples to bloggers. 90% ended up writing post. It helped get the word out, but did not add a lot to sales. However, it also helped get the word out to conventional media.

- 7000 books sold!
- Beer can be tax deductible!
- E-commerce is easy, setting the price is not.

Great set of Q&A. Wish that I had a question… Really wanted a book. Might have to pick one up the old fashion way.

Agnieszka Gasparska – Kiss Me I’m Polish

Does Design matter?

Side note: My answer? “Yes”, but that’s why they didn’t ask me to do the keynote :)

Aesthetic and purpose can overlap.

As can, art and math.

And creativity and structure.

Starts a project by asking the client for a book of visual references – sometimes these can hundreds of pages/images.

For projects that will continue to develop – how does the design template cope. Too little design leaves the experience flat. Too much, and it overpowers the content. The template should be a stage.

Less + less

Easy is hard – with minimal design, there is less to hide behind.

No style is the new style.
“everything should be as simple as possible, bit no simpler” – Albert Einstein

Christopher Fahey  – the Internet is not made of robots.

If you have glasses or use a computer to do simple addition – then YOU are a cyborg!

• 1) don’t replace humans.
• 2) don’t try to replicate humans.

However, we can build better products by thinking of the as human.

We tend to think that our tech have human qualities anyway.

Wow – I just realized that the room (one of the larger ones) is packed. Standing room only.

The 3 qualia of human products:

• – Sentience
• – Intimacy
• – Personality

Elegance is the new efficiency.
If we don’t humanize our products , our products will mechanize us.

Came back a little late from lunch. Looking around, but haven’t spotted my friends from Metrofiets.

Looks like they are doing rapid presentations.

#1 The first presenter ( from bikehugger) just mentioned my tallbike locked up out front.

#2 Brian hates bike thieves. Created stolenbikeregistry.com Future? Chip bikes like we chip pets.

#3 Michael – bike computer. Awareness, safety, fun. Hackable! velosynth.com

#4 April – from treehugger. 4 men for every 1 women bike commuter. Fashion is the new trend. Cycle chic!

#5 Matt – cyclocross. Fall/winter exercise. Steeplechase!

#6 Greg – bike safety. Moving people and freight. Portland has 2000 bike events each year.

#7 Brian – green goose. Games that use sensors to compete. Bit of an ad presentation, but still cool tech.

#8 Lea – does one thing really matter? Bottom line? Yes, it does. Every day one thing (edot). Dots add up to donation dollars.

#9 David – bikehugger. Top mobile apps for bikes. Very nice.

#10 Shawn – typography of the bicycle. Strange topic. Great images!

Hey! What happened to the MF boys?