@media 2005

Saturday, 11th June 2005

Author: Gez Lemon

Contents

• Top Speaker
• Early Registration
• Great People
• Too Many People to Mention
• JavaScript Meetup
• A Special Thank You
• More About @media 2005

Top Speaker

The @media 2005 conference in London was even better than I imagined it would be. Without doubt, the best speaker for me was Joe Clark. If you've never had the good fortune to hear Joe speak, I urge you to do so if you get a chance. The only thing I regret is not having a chance to speak to him. Every time I tried to talk to Joe, he was surrounded by people wanting his attention. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to meet him properly at some time in the future.

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Early Registration

There was a chance to register in the afternoon the day before the conference. Having a severe allergy to early mornings, I took the opportunity to secure a lie in on the first day. While I was there, Jeffrey Zeldman came over and stood behind me. I was really tempted to say hello, but having a shy disposition, coupled with not being able to think of anything to start a conversation, I stood silently waiting to register. Considering that Jeffrey was the keynote speaker for the event, I was amazed when one of the organisers came over and asked for his name. His response couldn't have been more proof that Jeffrey is an approachable person. I was expecting him to sound indignant that the person didn't know who he was, but he responded in a gentle, unassuming voice, I'm one of the speakers, after which he was ushered into the lecture theatre.

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Great People

On the first day, I met up with Bruce Lawson. Bruce is one of the most amazing people I've ever met, if not the most amazing. He's incredibly bright, unassuming, with one of those unstoppable personalities that's all about getting as much out of life as you can. It was like speaking with someone I'd known all my life, yet we'd only ever exchanged a few emails before the conference.

Another of the highlights for me was speaking with Molly E. Holzschlag. Molly's an absolutely amazing woman. With Molly, you get what it says on the box. All readers here will be familiar with Molly's outgoing style. In real-life, she's exactly the same. I've never seen anyone with so much energy, yet time to speak to everyone. She was the life and soul of the final night's party. Like Bruce, meeting Molly felt like meeting someone I had known all my life: she's very approachable, attentive, passionate about what she does, and an all-round pleasure to speak to. I really hope that I get the chance to see Molly speak again in the future.

I also managed to speak to Mike Davies, also known as Isofarro. Like me, Mike is quite shy, so I'm really pleased I managed to catch up with him, or we could have spent the conference in our own corners. I particularly enjoy Mike's work, because he's incredibly articulate, and thorough with whatever he turns his hand to. I had a good chat with Mike last night, and hope I get to do so again at some time in the future. I was also fortunate to meet Christian Heilmann. There's been a lot of talk about 2005 being the year of the DOM. The main reason for this is because of the interest in Ajax due to web applications such as Google Suggest. I believe that Christian has also played a significant role in the interest of scripting with his brilliant article, unobtrusive JavaScript, which demonstrates perfectly how to use scripting in a responsible, and accessible manner. I met up with Christian several times over the two days, and he's an incredibly interesting person to talk with. He has a great insight into accessibility, web standards, and where the behavioural layer fits in all this.

The prize for the most comical expression from the speakers has to go to Jeremy Keith. Considering he was up against people like Joe Clark and Andy Clarke, both of whom are very witty, he did exceptionally well. His talk was about scripting, and using the most appropriate tool for the job. As an analogy, he mentioned that when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. It doesn't seem that funny here, but in the context of his talk, combined with his timing, it really was a hilarious comment.

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Too Many People to Mention

There were so many people I admire and managed to meet during the conference, that I'm almost certain to leave several people out. Without exception, everyone I met was pleasant and a joy to talk with. If I've left you out, it's nothing personal. I met so many people that I feel a bit overwhelmed. One of the people I was very glad to have met was Patrick H. Lauke. Patrick helped me with URL rewriting when making the move from ASP to PHP, and we had a good laugh last night with Bruce. I also managed to have a brief chat with Roger Johansson. Like most others, Roger is incredibly down to earth considering he runs such an amazing and influential website. I suspect that's one of the reasons his website is so successful. Roger's obviously interested in promoting best practice, and has a very good style of writing that makes his point succinctly, but with a strong focus on quality. I also met, albeit briefly, Jon Gibbins. I was disappointed that I only managed to have a very brief chat with Derek Featherstone. I've spoken to Derek a few times by email, but would really liked to have had the opportunity to have talked more in person.

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JavaScript Meetup

There was a meeting in London today to discuss JavaScript, with Peter Paul Koch (who I was also fortunate to meet, who again is an incredibly nice, approachable guy), Simon Willison, Dean Edwards, Stuart Langridge, Jeremy Keith, and many other leading experts in the field of scripting. Unfortunately, I had a train to catch which meant I wasn't able to attend. Hopefully, they had a very productive meeting, and we'll get to hear about it through their respective blogs.

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A Special Thank You

A special thank you has to go to Patrick Griffiths and Vivabit for organising the conference. If Patrick hadn't organised the conference, he would still be amongst the top of my list of people to mention, as he's an incredibly nice guy. HTML Dog has to be the best online reference for markup and CSS, yet here's someone who is not only approachable, but made a massive effort to ensure that everyone was enjoying themselves. Thank you, Patrick - and I'm not just saying that for a free copy of your up and coming book, although I would say more if you did send me a copy :-)

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More about @media 2005

• Joe Clark on @media 2005
• Mike Davies on @media 2005
• Bruce Lawson on @media 2005
• Molly on @media 2005
• Andy Clarke on @media 2005
• Andy Budd on @media 2005
• Veerle Pieters on @media 2005

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Category: General.