Jason Austin's Blog Life and times of a PHP Developer in Raleigh, NC

Futureweb2010 Day 2

Day 2 at Futureweb 2010 brought some interesting sessions and some less-than-interesting sessions as well.  Here's my wrap-up.

The opening keynote was from Danah Boyd, who is an expert at looking at analytics with respect to social media.  Her talk was jam packed with interesting information, but the part that spoke to me was the escalation of Facebook and what that has meant to privacy.  When Facebook started (and when I joined) it was limited to .edu email addresses, which meant that the users were entirely academic.  Academia has a much different level of trust with one another than the general public, and Facebook got a reputation early on as being a viable alternative to MySpace...MySpace without the kooks   As Facebook grew up, they got much looser with the data that they possess.  First with Beacon, then with Facebook connect, and most recently with Facebook Graph.  They have gone from trusted source, to a company that seems willing to distribute data about you to every single website that wants it.  During the talk, I posted this tweet:

Now I have always known the risks of giving my data to Facebook.  I'm not one of the people Danah talked about who don't know what the privacy policies are or just click though the alerts and not reading them.  I'm an informed user and I (think I) know what Facebook is doing with my info.  But there most recent moves to allow my friends to share data about me without my say so is frightening.  So much so, that I am considering removing my account totally.  We'll see how that goes...another blog post is probably forthcoming about that.

The other session that I found extremely interesting was one on entrepreneurship.  This is a topic that hits close to home for me, as I am working on my third startup right now.  There was so much awesome advice that came from this, but I'm going to focus on a few key points.  The first point, was that staying in the black and making money early will save you from mistakes and heartache later on.  This was in reference to seeking VC money for your startup.  It really does make a LOT of sense to me.  I mean, if your idea takes off and you aren't making any money, you could put yourself in a situation where you HAVE to have a million dollars+ of funding just to continue your work.  If you don't have that money, you have to essentially sell your company to VC funding groups to stay above water.  VC's usually want about 75-80% of your company, which before you know it, you have lost control of your company and are now subject to the whims of your financial backers.  Not a great move.  The other thing I heard in the talk was a quote..."The defining mark of an entrepreneur is that they are people who get things done".  Damn straight.  I couldn't have said it better myself, and it's about as true as it comes.

The other sessions for the day were lacking.  I went to an intellectual property discussion and a discussion on interactive design, neither of which spoke to me at all.  I felt as though the speakers were more interested in hearing themselves talk than conveying useful information.  I'm sure somebody somewhere got something out of it, but I thought they were unprepared and uninteresting.

I'll be back for the third and final day tomorrow.

Futureweb2010 Day 1

As is tradition, I will be blogging about my experience at the Futureweb2010 conference which is held here in Raleigh.

First off, Futureweb is a "lite" version of the real conference, so we don't get to hear all the normal talks, but we get to be present for the keynotes and a few other really interesting interview-style sessions.  Here's what the first day of Futureweb2010 was like.

First off, I had no idea how big this conference (www2010) really was.  It is a global conference with over 48 countries represented.  Last year it was in Spain.  Go Raleigh!  Way to land one of those big, tech conferences!

This was my first experience in the new Raleigh Convention Center as well.  It is really a very nice venue.  Large, airy spaces with lots of natural light.  A great place to hold such a prestigious conference.  I was truly impressed by the venue.

The conference started with a keynote from Vint Cerf, who is one of the fathers of the internet.  After being introduced by someone, who was introduced by someone else, who was introduced by yet another person, he finally hopped (although almost fell) on stage and the show started.  His keynote was mostly focused on the challenges that the next generation of the internet will bring.  Security, routing, infrastructure.  Lots of things that, as a developer, I need, but don't really care about.  It was an interesting talk though.

The next was a panel on the openness of government and the sharing of data.  It was a panel with Tim Berners-Lee (inventor of the internet) and a few other folks representing the UK government, US government and the US Archives.  This is a topic that hits near and dear to my heart, as I work in state government.  The focus was on making government more transparent by providing access to data that once was locked away in small, dark places.  I found it incredibly interesting and inspiring.  I immediately made the following tweet:

...which I plan on trying to make happen here at state.

The afternoon sessions were additional interviews with Tim Berners-Lee and Vint Cerf.  Both guys are very good speakers and extremely interesting (I mean, Vint Cerf just knows Al Gore and Bill Clinton.  Who does that?  Crazy...)  Both of them are so far above the rest of us in their theory and understanding of the internet that it is intimidating.  Crazy smart dudes.

A slight not to those who are organizing.  Hour and a half sessions are way way way too long.  In my opinion, one hour should be the max session time with 45 minutes being ideal.  Those marathon sessions wore me out and I thought they could have been condensed with the same information conveyed.

Anyway, that's it for day one.  I'll be around for the rest of the week so if you are attending, find me and say hello.

Futureweb 2010 at WWW2010

This week, I will be attending the Futureweb conference, which is a sub-conference of WWW2010...held right here in good ol' Raleigh.  The topics are all set around looking forward to what the web will bring us in the coming years.  Should be interesting...

There are some great speakers lined up like Vint Cert and Tim Berners-Lee.  I'm probably more excited to spend some quality time networking and meeting other folks in the development community (my favorite part of any conference).

Anyone else going?  If so, hit me up and we can grab a drink or something.