Not Going

Today I got an email about the 2008 @Media conference in London at the end of May. Normally, I’d be there like a shot – in fact, I was well on my way to booking a ticket, particularly as it was £355 today (for today only) against the full price of £495. (although until mid-March it’s an ‘early bird’ price of £395 or so)

But there was something nagging me about those dates, 29-30 May. Something… So I checked the calendar. And it turns out it’s lucky I did, because on the 30th we’re going over to Wales before travelling to Ireland the next day.

So it’s good that I didn’t book the place before remembering about the holiday – but it’s still a bummer that I’m going to miss this year’s @Media conference.


@Media Day Two – thoughts

I never did get round to finishing this, did I? Doh!

For the thoughts (such as they are) clicky on the ‘more’ link…
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@Media Day One – thoughts

For the Thursday, these are the presentations I saw…

*Clicky* on the ‘more’ link to see what I thought…
Read the rest of this entry »


@Media Aftermath

Yeah yeah, I know, I haven’t written out my thoughts on the two days of @Media yet.

And I won’t get round to it today either, as I’m currently swamped in the backlog from those two days away from the office.

Still, that’ll all be out of the way by the end of today, so then I can perhaps get on with current stuff instead.


@Media – First thoughts

So, @Media 2007. Was it any good?

The short answer? Yes, absolutely. Was it worth the (roughly) £700 for it ?(including the price of the conference, hotel for two nights, and train ticket etc.) Again, to me, a resounding yes. Mind you, I just wish that- when you consider the amount of money spent per person– for the conference, the food wasn’t such generic slop, despite being a different supplier to last year. Then again, I said that last year too

That’s the basic summary – I’ll be writing more over the next couple of days about the presentations I saw, and some thoughts about them. Call me Mr Comprehensive…


On the way home…

So, that’s @Media done with (for me) for another year, and I’m off back to deepest darkest Norfolk.

More thoughts will follow…


Internet Access

Over the last few weeks, my internet access has been – how shall we say? – “interesting”.

Not only did I end up on dial-up for a week after moving house (along with epic levels of sweary words), but while I’ve been in London the access has been decidedly patchy too.

@Media made the – very smart, in my opinion – decision to not have wifi access in the rooms. It sounds weird to not have internet access at a web conference, but it’s brought about an impressive reduction in the number of people surfing, answering emails, and generally eFuckingAbout while presentations are going on. And that’s a good thing – it’s meant that more attention has been focussed on-stage, and there’s also less distraction in the audience – it’s hard to concentrate on what someone onstage is saying when the person in front/behind/next to you is belting away on a manky clicky keyboard.

But the hotel I’ve been using is supposed to have wi-fi – it’s extra, and supplied by Spectrum Internet. And for the last two days it’s been about as stable as Charles Manson on LSD.

So all told the internet access has been pretty ropy while I’ve been here. No bad thing in some ways, but it does mean I’ve not been able to get a fair amount of web-based work done. Ah well, that’s what weekends are for, apparently.