Webstock 2009 - A Look Back In Anger

So, there we have it, Webstock 2009 is over and yet another success from the team - well done!

What did I think of it all, well there's really only two questions that people seem to want to know the answer:

1. Wow, what did you think of Ze Frank?
2. Crickey, what did you think of Bruce Sterling?

Ze Frank made me cry and I'm still not sure why.

He made a difference deep within that is still being worked upon.

Bruce Sterling made me laugh and think.

His talk was provocative but nothing that surprising as it's what he does. I was more surprised by the tweets flying around that were obviously challenged by his views and approach ... but that also made me laugh.

For actual write ups of the full conference you can do no better than any one of these:

• Kalena 'webstock' posts
• Ben's CloudAve 'webstock09' posts
• Ben's Idealog posts
• matt.geek.nz
• webstock '09: day 1
  
• webstock '09: day 2: when sterling attacks
• Robyn's I went to Webstock and I all got was a brown t-shirt
• ClickSuite 'webstock09' posts
• ... [ADD YOURS/MORE IN THE COMMENTS]

And how about catching up on the Twitter backchat that happened at Webstock09 ...

And in pictures we have the almost perfect Flickr 'webstock'

Oh, and I was fortunate enough to attend two top notch workshops earlier in the week.

Damian Conway's full day "Presentation Aikedo" was, as you can imagine, an insight. There was a lot of pulling back the curtain and seeing the wizard pulling the levers - brilliant. And allowing us 5 minutes to "give it a go" garnered a lot of quality feedback for myself and for all of us (Mike's opening of Webstock proper was a lot tighter!)

The other workshop I attended is slowly becoming my top takeaway from the whole week.

Michael Lopp of the "Mothership" took us though meetings and organising yourself at work. God it sounds tedious but he was full of creative, imaginative and insightful thoughts. Also, practical things to do. Basically, his workshop has made my life easier and for that, thank you!

In Martha style, here's my Webstock in bullet points:

• New bag
• Awesome notebook
• Confusing card game + Ray Gun Syndicate (tm) = fun (thanks Jayne)
• Oooooh, the massage chairs from *experience
• Free coffee / free ice cream / free food is only fluff on top of the speakers
• No need for a laptop as iPhone did the job
• It was a bubble protected from real life
• Symantic data rocked the geek within me - SPARQL
• The standard for conferences set by Webstock is nothing short of astounding
• Loved talking with Ben
• Ze made me cry
• Ze made me dance crap with enthusiasm so he could win a bet, *sheesh*
• It smelled of b.o. at the after-after-party at Vintage, it stopped me drinking more which was good
• Heather from Flickr was awesome and I think I fell in love
• Free WiFi rocked
  
• Free gloves and scarves for the first morning would've helped :-)
• Every single presenter gave me something
• It wasn't quite as OMG! for me as last year
• Unfortunate timing with Section92a rally but it still made a difference
• Yes, I will go next time (year?) but I'll be weighing it up much miore critically
• Tash's close was perfect

I leave you with my favourite (almost throw away) line from the conference as uttered by Ze Frank as he left the stage:

Remember, the little things are why we do the big things