I’m in believer in the philosophy of the small.

Part of why I quit was I wanted to work on things I could get my entire hands around (e.g. books), even if I made less money than I would for continuing to play a small role in the making of big things.  I bet I’d get more pride and pleasure from making things I loved, even if they are only used by a few people, than I would for the thousands of compromises that come with making things used by millions of people.

One of my former bosses at Microsoft, Hillel Cooperman, has not only gone on his own with Jackson Fish, a company that makes hand crafted software (you read that right), but he’s started up a little event for people who share the small and special philosophy.

What: Small and Special - a tiny conference for entrepreneurs and hopefuls

When: June 30th, 2009, 2-6pm

Where: Seattle (Georgetown)

Cost: $25!

You can find Registration details and the excellent speaker list here.

If you’re a small business owner or have thought about starting one, this is a great way to meet many locals who are a few steps ahead of you. Check it out.

Posted in Seattle, entrepreneurship | No Comments »

The cool thing about Ignite Seattle, beyond the crazy fun format (5 mins, 20 slides, 15 seconds a slide), is how positive and supportive the vibe is.  Everyone talks about cool things they’ve seen and heard, and there’s a buzz of learning and doing that’s superior to most conferences.  It’s geekish, for sure, but it also surprisingly cross-discipline. There were talks about parenting, libraries, biology, medicine, raising chickens and more.

Perhaps part of the magic is that it’s just one intense night - the fact that’s an evening thing and there’s always a bar at the venue perhaps changes who comes and why. Kudos to @Brady and @BryanZug and the all the folks that volunteered to help out.

Last night I was lucky and got to a talk on how to give an ignite talk, and if the video makes it online I’ll post.

In the meantime here’s what I learned last night (from memory - forgot my notebook):

• Creativity is fueled by contact with weak social links - you need points of contact that are not your primary circle to stimulate you  (Shelly Farnham)
• Assuming your users have Alzheimer is a hack for better design thinking (Roy Leban)
• There are many people with Lego-addiction and Hillel is one of them (Hillel Cooperman)
• I learned about clipping (drop vowels) and thesauri (vocabulary wins) for twitter (Jason Preston)
• If you think you’re competent, you probably aren’t  (Ron Burk)
• Native Americans/?Micronesians  had cool map technology (@kbeegle)
• All good marriages are creative partnerships (Jen Zug)

Posted in Seattle, public speaking | 3 Comments »

Ignite is always an awesome time. There is something so fun about the crowd that comes, and then of course there’s all the crazy stuff that happens on stage.

If you’ve never been, the format is 5 minutes per speaker. The catch is the slides are automated: 20 slides, 15 seconds per slide. The results are, shall we say, unpredictable.

It’s this Wed, 7pm at the King Kat Theater in Seattle.

Here’s Wednesday’s awesome lineup:

7PM - Doors Open

7:30 PM - Paper Tower Contest Begins - Build the tallest tower you can out of just 5 sheets of paper and tape (See Details)

8:30 - First Set of Talks
Hillel Cooperman (@hillel) - The Secret Underground World of Lego
Dawn Rutherford (@dawnoftheread) - Public Library Hacking
Roy Leban (@royleban) - Worst Case User Experience: Alzheimer’s
Shelly Farnham (@ShellyShelly) Community Genius: Leveraging Community to Increase your Creative Powers
Dominic Muren (@dmuren) - Humblefacturing a Sustainable Electronic Future
Jen Zug (@jenzug) - The Sanity Hacks of a Stay At Home Mom
Ken Beegle (@kbeegle) - Decoding Sticks and Waves
Maya Bisineer (@thinkmaya) - Geek Girl - A life Story
Scott Berkun (Scottberkun.com)- How and Why to Give an Ignite Talk

9:45 PM - Second Set of Talks
Scotto Moore (Scotto.org)- Intangible Method
Secret Guest Speaker from Ignite Portland
Mike Tykka - The Invention of the Wheel
Jason Preston (@Jasonp107) - Goodbye Tolstoy: How to say anything in 140 characters or less
Chris DiBona (@cdibona) - The Coolness of Telemedicine
Ron Burk - The Psychology of Incompetence
Katherine Hernandez (@ipodtouchgirl) - The Mac Spy
Jamie Gower JamieGower.com) - I Am %0.0002 Cyborg
Beth Goza (@bethgo) - Knitting in Code

Hope to see you there.

Posted in On Tour, Seattle | 1 Comment »

Last call for presentation camp - a brand new unconference event for people interested in pitching, presenting and public speaking.

Presentation Camp
At UW communications building (map)
Saturday April 4th 2009, 9am-4:30pm (Full schedule here)

It’s $15 if you register by noon today, $20 later today or at the door.

I’ll be doing a keynote on Why your talk sucks and what to do about it. And if there’s enough interest I’ll be doing a slide critique fun house, where we look at each others slides and help make them better.

Plus I’ll be around all day interviewing people for my next book.

Hope to see you there.

Posted in On Tour, Seattle, public speaking | No Comments »

Saturday April 4th Kathy Gill and I are running the first ever Seattle presentation camp, an unconference for people interested in all forms of public speaking, presenting, and pitching ideas.

We’ve posted the core  schedule with some of the sessions that we know will take place, as well as plenty of slots for unconference style sessions (you, as an a attendee, can suggest or run a session yourself).

Presentation Camp Schedule - Sat April 4th

Session include Ignite’s Brady Forest talking about how to speak at major conferences, I’ll be speaking on skills I learned from being on national TV as well as how to get over fears of public speaking, Kathy Gill from UW will be talking about Presentation Zen and Slideshare, and plenty more good stuff.

Registration is just $10, enough to cover the basic costs for the cool rooms we’ve got at the UW for the event.

It’s a new event so we’re open to ideas, volunteers and other contributions.  Get in touch with Kathy or I.

Hope to see you there - and help spread the word if you can.  Facebook event and Upcomming event pages are up.

Posted in On Tour, Seattle, public speaking | No Comments »

Thanks to the kick-ass work of Kathy Gill, the first ever presentation camp in Seattle is scheduled to run all day Saturday April 4th at the University of Washington.

$10 gets you in for the whole day if you register by March 31 -  Registration and details here.

PresentationCamp is an ad-hoc gathering of passionate folks who want to share, interact and spread the love around the topic of presentation design and delivery. Come to learn, come to share: everyone walks away knowing a little bit more. (Not in seattle? Other camps are listed here )

The day will be run in unconference format, meaning every attendee is free to volunteer to run a session. The wiki is used to help sort out who is interested in what, and what sessions are already being planned. Don’t see what you want? Add a note for what you want to see, or what you’d be interested in helping run.

Right now odds are good I’ll be doing a big talk to start the day, and will definitely run a session or two during the event.

If you’re interested, please asap, leave your name on the wiki to help us plan the day, or go ahead and register.

Posted in Seattle, Teaching/Training | No Comments »

The good folks at Bellevue’s Construx software have a special offer for folks in the tech-sector recently laid off. Here’s a quote from their press release:

“During the dot com collapse the software industry was at the epicenter of the recession. Most of our clients were affected, and that meant we were affected,” said Steve McConnell, Construx CEO and author of five best selling software development books. “We remember what it was like before, and we are fortunate this time to be in a position to extend a helping hand to our friends whose companies are struggling.”

During boom periods many software professionals have difficulty finding time to sharpen their skills. “Our seminars focus on developing the skills to develop world-class software. We want software people to be able to build their careers, whether they have a job at the moment or not,” Mark Nygren, Construx’s COO stated.

They’re reserving 25% of the seats in some of their courses for folks that qualify (Must have been laid off after July 1, 2008). Details on the program here.

Posted in Seattle | 1 Comment »

Hadn’t heard of this before, but there’s a design unconference here in Seattle this weekend: InfoCamp 2008.

$50 gets you in for two days of DIY sessions on information architecture, user-centered design, librarianship, and information management. According to their description, It features an egalitarian, community-driven format in which presentations are designed and delivered by attendees.

Their website has a wiki, full schedule, blog and info on registration. If you’ve never been to an unconference before and work in design, check it out.

If you’re thinking about running a session at an unconference, check this out.

Posted in Design, Seattle | No Comments »

I mentioned the 2nd annual Bizjam conference a few weeks ago - It’s this week! And as a bonus the organizers have given me two tickets, each worth $395, to give away.

Leave a comment to enter - I’ll pick two winners 2pm Tuesday July 8th PST. If you’re an independent business owner, say so and include a link (you’ll have better odds of winning).

Event details, schedule, speaker list and parties here.

Posted in Seattle | 1 Comment »

This is an independent’s dream event - a local business networking group runs an affordable ($390) two day event, packed with people who provide all the services independent professionals need. It’s easy networking, high quality sessions, and a personal, friendly vibe that’s hard to find.

I spoke at the first Bizjam last year and had a good time. Highly recommend checking this out if you’re an independent, or are thinking of leaving a corporate mothership for a career on your own.

Full schedule, Speaker list, and Registration details.

Posted in Seattle | 1 Comment »

Hi folks - you may know I make most of my living performing lectures and teaching workshops. I love to teach and it provides a solid income to support all the writing I do here and in books.

After 4 years of doing this exclusively for hire by fancy companies, universities and big conferences, I’m exploring offering my best courses to the public, so anyone interested can throw tomatoes at me in person.

What I’m looking to find out is:

1) Are there enough people interested in Seattle?
2) Which course I should offer first?
3) How much would you (or your company) pay for a day of training?

If you live in the Seattle area, please give the short survey a spin. Will take you exactly 45 seconds. Cheers!

If I can get this running here in my hometown, I’ll happily take the show on the road to other cities if, and where, there’s enough interest.

Posted in Seattle, Teaching/Training | No Comments »

O’reilly’s ignite event, a fun gathering of geekish entertainment, is on again - same venue (Capital Hill’s CHAC), but an entirely new round of 5 minute talks.

I always have fun at these things and highly recommend them - have a few drinks, watch people scramble to do a presentation in 300 seconds, and meet the local tech community all at the same time. The talks this time include:

Make Art Not Content, Scotto Moore
Hacking Chocolate, Shawn Murphy
Small medicine: Nanotechnology and biology, Deepak Singh
Run the Government: A Primer for Online Citizens, Sarah Schacht
No, not skin: Epidemiology for the layman, Maegan Ashworth
How to buy a new car, Rob Gruhl

and more.

When: Tomorrow, Wed. August 8th, 8:30pm (6:30pm for the Make event)
Where: CHAC

I can’t make it this time, but I’ll back for the next one.

Posted in Seattle | No Comments »