The Workshops

We’ve got some great workshops lined up for you this year. So if you want to learn from the best, sign up today.

Morning Sessions

• Copywriting fundamentals for the web

  Time:

  09:00 - 12:30, 30 Sep 2009

  Location:

  Wallacespace St Pancras

  Speaker:

  Relly Annett-Baker, Freelance

  Relly Annett-Baker has spent nearly a decade at the coalface of content creation. This workshop draws on her experience to explore the fundamentals of copywriting for the web, why it should be your first consideration for both sites and apps, a DIY guide to copy, when to get a professional in and the most common mistakes rookie writers make.

  What you'll learn

  * Write copy that grabs people's attention
  * Communicate concisely through headline copy
  * Place copy strategically on the page to get the best results
  * Avoid common copy-writing mistakes
  * Maximise the effectiveness of your copy
  * Write valuable and interesting strap-lines
  * Use the correct tone for your audience

  

  Relly Annett-Baker
  Freelance

  Relly Annett-Baker lives in Brighton with her husband, Paul Annett, and their two-year-old son. As a result she thrives on the sea air and can be guaranteed to stand on Lego at least once a day. As well as being a copywriter, she is employed as live-in domestic staff by two cats who often supervise her typing and make editorial suggestions such as 'I think it's dinner time'. When not being purred into submission she writes copy and content for clients, magazine articles for titles as diverse as .net magazine and Scrapbook Inspirations and is currently writing a children's novel.

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• How to Build with Facebook Connect and add Social Context to Your Website

  Time:

  09:00 - 12:30, 30 Sep 2009

  Location:

  Wallacespace St Pancras

  Speaker:

  Cat Lee, Facebook

  Facebook Connect is a powerful set of APIs for developers that lets users bring their identity and connections everywhere. Developers get access to a user's:
  

  * Identity: name, photos, events, hobbies, and more.
  

  * Social Graph: friends and connections.
  

  * Stream: activity, distribution, and integration points within Facebook, like stream stories and Publishers.
  

  We'll show you how to use this information to create more engaging experiences on your website and connect people everywhere.

  What you'll learn

  * Quick overview of the benefits of integrating with Facebook Connect: more traffic, engagement, registration.
  * How to determine what to build: evaluating and adding the right features of Facebook Connect to your website.
  * How to get started: integrating Facebook Connect authentication to your site, social widgets
  * How to go from good to great: figuring out transformative impact and how to optimize (A/B test, iterate, repeat)

  

  Cat Lee
  Facebook

  Cat Lee leads Facebook’s efforts around localizing Facebook Connect and developing scalable solutions for developers around the world. Cat also leads fbFund, a social incubator focused on investing in and mentoring startups. Prior to Facebook, Cat worked for Lockheed Martin in corporate strategy and as a software engineer building tools for classified programs and missiles. Cat holds a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Stanford University and a master's degree in business administration from University of Michigan Ross School of Business.

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• Building Web Apps Using Atlas

  Time:

  09:00 - 12:30, 30 Sep 2009

  Location:

  Wallacespace St Pancras

  Speaker:

  Francisco Tolmasky, 280 North

  With the launch of Atlas, the team at 280 North redefined what is possible with web apps. In this workshop, you'll learn how to use Cappuccino, Objective-J and Atlas to create amazingly powerful web app user interfaces. Atlas is a visual development tool for creating web applications using the Cappuccino framework. The best way to explain Atlas is by checking out this video: Atlas and Cappuccino are built on top of standard web technologies like JavaScript, and it implements most of the familiar APIs from GNUstep and Apple's Cocoa frameworks. When you program in Cappuccino, you don't need to concern yourself with the complexities of traditional web technologies like HTML, CSS, or even the DOM. The unpleasantries of building complex cross browser applications are abstracted away for you.

  What you'll learn

  * The advantages to using Objective-J, Atlas and Cappuccino
  * How to get started with a basic app
  * The new capabilities of Google Chrome and how it affects your web app UI
  * How to host, deploy and maintain a Cappucino app

  

  Francisco Tolmasky
  280 North

  Francisco is a co-founder of 280 North and the creator of the Objective-J programming language. 280 North is bringing desktop-class applications to the browser with their new open source framework, Cappuccino. They recently launched 280 Slides, the first application built on Cappuccino. Before 280 North, Francisco was an early member of the iPhone team at Apple, working on Mobile Safari and Maps.

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• How to Build Accessible Web Apps

  Time:

  09:00 - 12:30, 30 Sep 2009

  Location:

  Wallacespace St Pancras

  Speaker:

  Philip Strain, Ecliptic

  In this workshop you're going to learn how to make your web app accessible. Experts will walk you through the accessibility essentials you need to know and how to avoid common mistakes.

  What you'll learn

  • How commonly used IA and design techniques can make life difficult for some users
  • Video clips of real-life issues
  • The importance of user testing
  • Using diverse user personas as part of your design and development process
  • Why thinking about diversity will give you a competitive edge

  

  Philip Strain
  Ecliptic

  Philip Strain is a co-founder of Ecliptic, a user experience consultancy based in Belfast that focuses on development and usability/accessibility. Before starting Ecliptic, Philip worked for the Royal Mail Group's accessibility team, working with suppliers to ensure that Royal Mail's web sites are usable for all. The role also involved working closely with the diversity team,helping to form the group's web accessibility strategy. Philip has also worked as part of Google's User Experience Research team, where he conducted a number of studies with visually impaired participants, contributing to improving Google's overall accessibility. In addition, Philip has just completed a PhD in Web Accessibility and has published over 12 papers in the field of accessibility.

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Afternoon Sessions

• Kick-ass Online Marketing Techniques

  Time:

  13:30 - 17:00, 30 Sep 2009

  Location:

  Wallacespace St Pancras

  Speaker:

  Alex Hunter, @cubedweller

  How to get the biggest bang for your buck online and make your site stand out among the rest.

  What you'll learn

  * How to become part of the conversations surrounding your brand
  * Use social marketing tools to engage with your users and get ahead of the competition
  * Bleeding edge search engine optimisation (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) techniques
  * How some of the biggest brands in the world are crushing it on the web and why others are failing

  

  Alex Hunter
  @cubedweller

  Alex Hunter was previously the Head of Online Marketing for the Virgin Group. Before joining Virgin Management, Alex was based in California at Virgin America, where he used the web to build a grassroots marketing campaign to garner public support for Virgin America's certification process on a tight schedule and even tighter budget. The campaign was covered by Time magazine, CNN, and CNBC, amongst others. He also oversaw the front-end development of Virgin America's website which has since won several accolades including ad:tech and Webby Award honors. Currently based in London, Alex's work regularly takes him across the globe.

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• How to Build a Web App from A-Z

  Time:

  13:30 - 17:00, 30 Sep 2009

  Location:

  Wallacespace St Pancras

  Speaker:

  Mike McDerment, FreshBooks

  Having a great web app idea is only the beginning of the fun. Taking that idea from your head and getting all the way to launch is no easy task and unfortunately there aren't any official instruction So in this workshop, we are going to give you tips on the complete process of building a web app, from A to Z.

  What you'll learn

  * Building - your web app, your company, your team
  * Marketing - with and without money
  * Product management - so you know what’s right to build
  * Metrics - to track your progress
  * Financing - the who, what, when, where, why and how 5Ws of fund raising

  

  Mike McDerment
  FreshBooks

  Mike is the co-founder and CEO of FreshBooks, planet earth’s leading online invoicing app for service oriented professionals, freelancers and teams. Back in 2003, Mike built FreshBooks for his design firm and scratched his own itch. Since launching in May 2004 FreshBooks has touched over 600,000 lives and Mike and his team dedicate themselves to being a great service for people who love their work, and want to focus on it – instead of focusing on their paperwork.

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• Setting up Your Web App - Powerful Alternatives to LAMP

  Time:

  13:30 - 17:00, 30 Sep 2009

  Location:

  Wallacespace St Pancras

  Speaker:

  Chris  Lea, Virb

  The Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP-Perl-Python (LAMP) stack is absolutely one of the most ubiquitous development platforms for web applications in the world. So much so that there are many who have never strayed outside the well known environment it provides. However, there are exciting software developments currently that may provide better solutions than the trusty LAMP setup. In this workshop, we will look at each letter of this acronym, and discuss alternatives in the areas of operating systems, web servers, databases, and programming languages that may be of great benefit to your end product. Topics covered will be a survey of different *NIX flavors, a thorough examination of forking vs. asynchronous web server models, strengths and weaknesses of various database software and much more.

  What you'll learn

  * A survey of the popular, available Unix like operating systems, including what advantages they have over each other.
  * Alternate storage mechanisms for database-like data. Emphasis will be placed on when MySQL is not the correct choice.
  * An understanding of asynchronous vs. forking programming models for web servers and other software.
  * Alternatives to the Apache web server, with specific examples using Nginx.
  * A discussion of currently popular web programming languages, including strengths and weaknesses, with some practical advice for choosing what's best for different kinds of projects.

  

  Chris  Lea
  Virb

  Chris Lea works for (mt) Media Temple, currently as a lead systems architect for the social network Virb. For the last ten years or so he's been deeply involved with web-centric engineering, with emphasis on scalability, performance, system and network security, and programming methods. Publicly he's co-authored four books on PHP, edited several books about Javascript, and spoken at events such as FOWD, SXSWi, and WordCamp. He likes his neighborhood in Venice Beach, guitars, Linux, and sometimes OS X. However, he's rather confused about why some people choose to shoot with Nikon kits when there are perfectly good Canon ones available for sale all over the place. He recently restarted his personal blog at Chrislea.com.

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• Site Building with Drupal

  Time:

  13:30 - 17:00, 30 Sep 2009

  Location:

  Wallacespace St Pancras

  Speaker:

  Addison  Berry, Lullabot

  Drupal is a popular content management system (CMS) that powers a wide variety of dynamic, content-driven web sites. Its modular design means that thousands of modules can be used to add the functionality that your site needs without any custom programming. This workshop is aimed at people who've installed Drupal before and are familiar with the basics of its interface, but want to learn how to harness the power offered through contributed modules. We will use the popular Views and CCK modules to develop tailored content and custom presentation pages, and also explore a number of lesser-known Drupal modules to round out an example site's functionality. Finally, the session will cover techniques and resources for evaluating modules in Drupal's 4000+ item module directory to find the right tools for your site's needs.

  What you'll learn

  * How to use Drupal Contributed Modules
  * How to build tailored content and custom presentation pages
  * How to evaluate and choose the right Drupal modules
  * How to use Drupal modules to cut down development time

  

  Addison  Berry
  Lullabot

  Addison has been involved with Drupal since 2006 and is the current Documentation Team Lead for the project. In March 2009 she was awarded a Knight Foundation grant to improve Drupal documentation. She travels around the world, speaking at events from local high schools to major conferences like OSCON, working to improve Drupal and Open Source software. She is also involved with organizing the Writing Open Source conference to get open source projects together to share ideas about how to improve documentation. In addition to her focus on coordinating documentation efforts she helps maintain Drupal.org and is a permanent member of the Drupal Association General Assembly. She's provided core patches, maintains several contributed modules, and has been involved with the Drupal Dojo and the Google Highly Open Participation (GHOP) mentoring programs. Addi currently lives in Maryland with her partner, Colleen, and four contrary cats. When not obsessively working on Drupal in one way or another, she loves to get dirty in the garden or spend time cooking up a batch of homebrewed beer.

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