Thursday, June 19th, 2008
In our last tutorial, we pretty much had a skeletal website and we later added some color and styling to the header. Now that that’s done, we can finish up our site. Let’s style up our left and right columns:
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Tags: css, divs, no tables, production, two column layout, xhtml
Posted in Production Handbook, Tutorials | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 18th, 2008
On one Saturday, nearly 90 people gathered to the St. Edward’s Professional Education Center in Northwest Austin for ProductCamp Austin, spearheaded by Paul Young and John Milburn of Pragmatic Marketing, a product management teacher, startup enthusiast, and overall energetic presenter. A handful of others volunteered (me included) to keep PCA running smoothly, and several others enthusiastically made their way to discuss and teach the numerous different topics related to product management—at 8 AM.
Young and Milburn were immediately surprised at the high turnout, and received overwhelming feedback from participants from beginning to end. Some participants even pointed out that the amount of information and knowledge they’ve acquired is on par with or even exceeded what they expect from a traditional conference. For some, this was an open door to the world of product management while others fine-tuned their skills after discussing Agile development environments, usability, company strategies, and more. In fact, it was so impactful that Young announced that now ProductCamp Austin will be twice a year, and he is already planning a second PCA this fall!
Young and Milburn, however, were not the only ones who developed regular and long-term goals out of this. A number of native San Antonians (I’m not a native, but I still count) living elsewhere by chance came together and left with eager plans to improve their hometown. Additionally, everyone made at least one connection with prominent Austin locals as well as visitors from Dallas, TX, Phoenix, AZ, and, of course, Houston, TX. The mix of corporate and startup organizations created something apparently unexpected for Austin—a superb experience not just led by aspiring startups.
For many, the most important lesson was that this unique experience happened simply through dialogue and discussion, and, as someone said earlier, it was all free. My personal goal was to watch a BarCamp devoted to a specific topic behaved, and after throwing around ideas in my head, I finally saw a concrete way of planning AccessCamp, an accessibility “unconference” that will be added to the Barcamp wiki.
I would like to thank the PCA sponsor, planners, other volunteers, and participants for making this a great and encouraging experience for me. I look forward to the next ProductCamp Austin!
Tags: austin, barcamp, pca, product camp austin, san antonio, UI, usability, UX
Posted in Articles, Essays | No Comments »
Saturday, June 14th, 2008
I must say I love my hometown of San Antonio, and it’s interesting to see how many of them are transplants. Austin is definitely a city with (younger) transplants. And I must admit–there’s a logical reason, and PCA has demonstrated that. The learning and teaching experience from this, even after just 4 hours, is as incredible as my experience in SWSA.
PCA has a specific focus–it’s all about product management. So, how is it possible that it’s working so fluidly and created so much buzz? The focus itself. Those who do know and want to know are attending, and they know exactly what they want to see. Product management, a very important (and underrepresented) component of business, even idre.am, needs improvement. People realize the need for this, and seasoned PMs share their experiences while fresh companies listen to these lessons from corporations are established companies. So sessions are moving along fluidly.
I’m currently in my fourth session, which hits home with a lot of things an entrepreneur needs to keep in mind as well as his or her employees. Most of the presentations I have taken interest in are user experience-related, and as someone all about accessibility, this is a natural consequence of my interests.
Now we’ll continue on through the afternoon. Once it’s done I’ll prepare my final conclusion on PCA, so don’t go away!
Posted in Essays | No Comments »
