REMIX09: Thank You
REMIX09 happened last Thursday at Star city and by the feedback (twitter) I’ve seen so far, it went off with a bang. Thank you to all that attended, it’s you guys that give us the energy to do it every year. This year marked the single largest audience of any aussie REMIX crowd, and thus is it was a rockin’.
I wanted to send very special shout-outs’ to those who put energy into making sure you had the amazing time that you did.
So, [holds breath] a huge shout out to …
The partners in crime: Shane Morris, Finula Crowe and Chris Bright, these guys (+ myself) make up the REMIX core team. It’s these guys who put REMIX on this year, we keep each other sane (and insane at times), but it’s our respect for each others craft that makes REMIX better each year. Without you, REMIX wouldn’t rock. For various personal reasons, this year was the most challenging for all of us, thank you all for being so supportive of each other.
Fin doesn’t often get the public recognition that she deserves, but Fin makes sure the business end of town is taken care of, leaving Shane and I to get the best content to you guys. Thank you Fin!
The keynoters: This year’s keynote round up was one of the most exciting so far. Mega-props to …
- Shane Morris: Dude, as always, it has been a pleasure sharing the stage with you. Every time we get to hang I get better at my craft, thank you for continuing to be an inspiration.
- Peter Williams, CEO Deloitte Digital: for your opening, in the little time that I’ve gotten to know you, I’ve appreciated how down to earth you are, it’s been a pleasure.
- Iain McDonald, Founder Amnesia Razorfish: Iain is truly an industry leader, it was an honour to have you grace our stage. Special props to Brady O’Halloran and Jack Ukleja who where the Surface “brains behind the operation”. Even special’er props to Shane Morris who’s awesome knows no bounds, he rolled up his sleeves on this one, cut code and did a great job. I am in awe of how you do anything to get the job done, especially as it inevitably takes you out of your comfort zone.
- Michael Baker, GM of Technology, Incite: Michael showed us what they were getting up to earlier this year, we then threw out a wish list of things that would make it more awesome, Michael then delivered in spades and all in concurrency with the launch of his product. Mike, thanks for being such a great customer, it was our pleasure to have you share you great work at remix! Big thank you to Greg Willis for being BFF’s with Incite, it’s a great example of how Microsoft works so well with our customers.
- Stuart McGrath, CIO, GraysOnline with Tatham Oddie and Damian Edwards: Stewart agreed to be involved with IE8 and REMIX and did a superstar job on stage. Stewart, it has been a pleasure getting to know you over the past few months.Thank you for making the commitment you gave to REMIX with your product launch just days before the event. And of course, your support team deserve much credit, Tatham Oddie and Damian Edwards the efforts and lengths you guys go to; to simply do great work, astonishes me every time. Damo and Tate gave up evenings to make sure the IE8 bits for Grays went live, all without being asked. You are both, without a doubt, true legends.
- Joe Pollard, CEO Ninemsn: Joe, you have been one of the most accommodating CEOs that I’ve worked with in my years. Your commitment to make sure we put on the best show and that we demonstrated your solution in the best light leaves me proud. Special shout out to Chris Bright who ensured “Joe’s people” and “my people” we’re talking.
- Jordan Knight, Readify: Lastly, a huge shout out to my man Jordan Knight. We asked Jordan to get involved with Ninemsn in the leadup to REMIX, Jordan’s dedication knew no bounds, he was available on IM at all hours, nothing was too difficult and he always over promised and over delivered. Jordan, working with you has set the bar for me when it it comes to working with developers, thank you!
The Speakers: The core of REMIX is the content. Every year, we try our best to deliver the leading experts in their fields, this year was no exception.
I was largely in charge of the technical content, so in no particular order …
- Jordan Knight: As if your great work with the keynote demos wasn’t enough, thanks for sharing just an inkling of your knowledge with us mere mortals.
- David Burela: Thanks for sharing your Azure lovin’. We’re at the beginning of the Azure journey, I look forward to watching you become an industry leader on the subject.
- Damain Edwards and Tatham Oddie: I’ve already shared my views on your awesomeness. You guys keep me challenged every time we hang together, you are true industry leaders and it’s my honour to share your company.
- Nick Hodge and his band of merry men: Nick, thanks for being such a leader and assembling such a great group of panellists (Richard Buggy, Lachlan Hardy, John O’Brien, JBA and Tatham Oddie). It was a great session that provoked thought.
- Bronwen Zande and John O’Brien, Soul Solutions: Guys, you have become a staple at our events, you are truly passionate about our technology and continue to innovate, thank you for continuing to share your time and knowledge with us.
- Jose Fajardo: What can I say, I’ve enjoyed watching you grow from the newbie Jose to an industry speaker who commands respect from his peers. It has been my honour to have you around.
A long list, I know, but these guys really deserve the credit for putting on a great REMIX.
Hope to see you all at REMIX10.
-mk
2 commentsSwearing professionally
Seth Godin shares his thoughts on swearing in a professional capacity. It’s a subject that is near and dear to my heart for various reasons.
I love his final words …
The irony, as most multimillionaire authors will tell you, is that it’s art that creates the commerce, not the other way around. Hugh set out to write a book that matters, not a book that will please everyone.
-mk
1 commentRalph Magazine Photosynth
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of shooting for Ralph magazine. The goal … make a photosynth of the Mitsubishi Evo and Toyota Hilux with the beautiful Sherydin and Rachael.
I took over 1,000 photos an they synthed beautifully.
Check them out over on the Ralph website.
Thanks heaps to Chris from ninemsn for making this happen.
-mk
11 commentsBlind Search: The Search Taste Test
I thought it’d be fun to see what happens when you do a search that doesn’t have branding. Are we swayed by the branding of our favourite search engines?
To figure it out, I thought I’d try my hands at building a “Blind Search”. Basically, you enter a query, get back three results in random order then select the column which you believe gave you the best results.
Will be interesting to see the results.
Check it out over at http://blindsearch.fejus.com/, Have fun!
Also, please leave feedback below.
-mk
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update #1: The poll has been compromised. Probably equally due to my lack of leet skills and to the malicious person gaming it.
I’ve removed the ability to see the results until I sort this out. Meanwhile you can still have fun playing with blind search. Feel free to blame the douche for ruining it for everybody. Meanwhile, I wouldn’t take this a scientific whats-e-ma-jing, it’s just a bit of observational fun.
——————-
update #2: I’ve introduced a basic image search
135 commentsTech.Ed 09 call for Web content
Turns out this year, I’m the track owner for web content at Tech.Ed 09. So, if you wanna deliver some content and share your your awesomeness @ Tech.Ed, now is the time.
Judging by the multitude of REMIX09 submissions which I received, there is much in the way of great web content and speakers out there.
There’s a full session submission FAQ over on Andy Coates’ blog.
Mosey on over to the Call for Content tool and register with your email address and the RSVP code TechEdANZ. Fill in all the details and hit submit.
You can come back to the site at any time to update or review the progress of your submission.
Looking forward to your submissions!
-mk
No commentsDG.TV IE8 Webslices @ Ninemsn
Ninemsn has built a whole bunch of Webslices. Meet Andrian and Long these are two of the guys that built them.
One interesting that these guys do is use jQuery to inject the slices into their existing DOM. This gets around the need for major changes to their CMS.
Enjoy.
There a many slices scattered around the Ninemsn site, go ahead go and discover.
-mk
No commentsREMIX09 registrations are open
That’s right kids, we’ve taken off and are in mid flight. REMIX09 registrations are live.
If you’re interested in going to REMIX09, now is the time. Especially if you wanna take advantage of the early bird rate of $199 (saving $100).
Make sure you check out the full agenda as I reckon we’ve got some top notch speakers and content lined up for ya!
Looking forward to seeing you there.
-mk
No commentsThe Tweet Shirt
I’ve been looking for a good Twitter shirt of late, and i just couldn’t find one. So, I decided to take matters in to my own hands and make my own.
Behold . . . The Tweet Shirt
Rather than make one for myself, I figured I’d try my hand at selling stuff. So, I’ve set up a store over at TheTweetShirt.com, if you’re interested, pls feel free to pick one up or at least share the tweet shirt lovin’ on twitter etc.
It’s also been quite the cool educational experience. I did more jquery than I’ve ever done before and I learnt just how flippin’ simple PayPal is to integrate with. Ohh, and it gave me an excuse to bust out the old EOS 5D n’ studio rig and shoot some friends.
So. there you have it, The Tweet Shirt. Please spread the love.
-mk
8 commentsFirst Sydney SDDN (Silverlight Designer and Developer Network) this Tuesday!
I’m a bit late in spreading this great news.
Sydney’s first SDDN is on this Tuesday at 6:00 PM at Level 2, The Pyrmont Bridge Hotel.
There will be two speakers, Chris Anderson will be talking about advanced skinning.
And Jordan Knight will be doing what he does best, be awesome the ol’ Sliverlight.
Miguel has the deets over on his blog.
-mk
1 commentFollow Responsibly: 5 ways to keep twitter clean and honest.
I’m a relatively early twitterer. I started using twitter in March of 07 and boy were they great times. No one was trying to market anything, it was just a bunch of cool kids getting value out of this new way of communicating.
Since then, twitter as a whole, has changed. It’s gone from a place of sincere conversation to being a cesspool of so called Social Media Experts, celebrities and all sorts of marketers.
And as this new era of twitter dawns I guess I feel the loss of the old and have struggled a little as it has turned into the cesspool that it is.
Why do I call it a cesspool? Well, here’s the problem. When Ashton Kutcher gets a million followers and everyone rejoices that the underdog has beat the media giant, they don’t realise that they’re creating a new media giant. One less governed by rules but far more by instant and spontaneous gratification.
The marketers and celebrities have come on board to do one thing, sell shit to you. And now they have a direct channel to message to you. Their game hasn’t changed, it’s just that now you’re a very active and willing participant, talk about Permission Marketing at its height! I mean seriously, AplusK follows 81 people and has 1.2M (and growing) followers, oh, and Oprah is following a total of 10.
This disproportionate ratio is sending a very clear message: twitter is a place to consume not to engage.
And thus my issue, a new breed of Twitterers is either trying to sell you shit or is being sold shit and Twitter’s DNA has changed as a result.
I want to be clear, I have no problem with selling shit, but that is (or at least should be) an ancillary benefit for being an active participant of the network and not the other way around.
So, as we sink deeper into Twitter being a reflection of our marketing and messaging infected real world, my mate Nick Hodge has some advice:
@delic8genius dont sub to the #wankerati. Simple. #unfollowsunday is my cleaning day :-)
So as is very often the case, Nick is right. Twitter is whatever you want it to be. Follow who you want to follow and Twitter will be the Twitter that you want it to be.
So, if you fear the possibility that Twitter becomes overwhelmingly a channel for one way communication, you can do something. You can follow responsibly. 5 tips to following responsibly:
- Unfollow a celebrity (or 2 or 3): Not saying you shouldn’t follow a celebrity that you connect with, but I can’t believe that many people really care about Ashton Kutcher’s life (even if he does have a vintage smokin’ hot wife)
- Unfollow the “new media”: Next time one of your twitter friends uses the phrase “new media”, unfollow or discipline their ass. Twitter is not new media. Also, follow some good advice and be a practitioner not an expert, as tempting as it may be to think you know it all, this is not a medium to know it all (it’s for know it all’s)
- Fix your following/followers ratio: If you are following a disproportionally high number of people relative to followers, you are a troll and can’t possibly be getting any genuine value out of Twitter. Begin a mass unfollowing and for your sins gimmie 5 x #unfollowsunday’s. Remember, you’re more awesome the more followers you have not the more that you follow, the latter kinda makes you a loser.
- Unfollow bots or virtual twitterers: Virtual twitterers are ok at events for announcements and for customer support I guess but other than that, there is generally no place for fake twitter entities.
- Be the good: Ultimately, Twitter newbies will follow your lead so be the citizen that you want others to be. Follow and engage with the great twitters and unfollow the not so great. Your followers will do the same.
If you feel this is an appropriate approach, please ask your friends to follow responsibly too.
-mk
10 comments
