Refresh Richmond Wrap-up
We had a incredible turnout for last Wednesday's first-ever Refresh Richmond. The audience included a number of friends and acquaintances that I see on a regular basis at AIGA and Ad Club functions, but also whole lot of people I have never seen before. I have long suspected that the Richmond-area web crowd is hungry for content that is relevant to their work. Wednesday's meeting seemed to confirm that.
My goal was to provide some insight into the design and development process for the AIGA Richmond site. The presentation focused somewhat on developing the site with Expression Engine, but in the interest of making it applicable to more people, I glossed over a good bit of the details. My hope was that people got a good sense of how the software was used, why it was selected, and how they might apply it to their own projects and client work.
Aaron and I joined Kyle Crouse and Brodie Rich after the event at Bottoms Up and talked a bit more about the event and Refresh Richmond in general. The consensus is that we are all very excited about seeing this type of content get in front of the web community in Richmond. Richmond tends to be behind the times in so many ways, and embracing new and better web technologies and methods is no exception. I've talked with Sharif about possible future topics and panel discussions and the possibilities are nearly limitless. The challenge it seems is finding people who can speak about the topics we think need to be covered. At the same time, I don't think it does anyone any good to simply not talk about important topics just because we can't find someone locally that counts themselves an "expert" on the topic. The discussion needs to happen one way or another. Hopefully as Refresh reaches more people in the community, more will step forward to offer their knowledge.
As I see it, the more people we get talking about this stuff, the more it will start to filter its way to clients -- especially if Refresh can engage people at different points in the web food chain (designers, developers, marketers, etc). The more clients start to see the possibilities and recognize quality, the more they will likely seek innovative and intelligent web work. That should prove to be a win-win for everyone involved -- clients, developers, designers, and most importantly the end-users.
For those of you that weren't able to make it, we're working on getting together a highlight reel of the presentation from video that was taken. For those of you that were there, I'd appreciate any constructive feedback you can provide to me. And don't forget to look for Sharif's questionnaire to provide feedback about this presentation and Refresh in general.
Phil Hertzler | 06.02.06 | 5 comment(s)
Reader Comments
Phil,
It’s always tough to be the first presenter of a series since you don’t know your audience or what they’ll want to hear. I think you did a great job talking about how your development process works, which was very enlightening. Great job, and I’m looking forward to linking to the highlight reel from my blog.
Posted by Rick Whittington from Richmond, VA on 06.05.06 at 8:21
Phil,
Great Program. It was very helpful to see the development process from the perspective of a designer/programmer. The turnout was very encouraging and I look forward to future presentations. The Richmond web community will certainly benefit from future Refresh events. Hats off to everyone involved—Thank you.
Posted by Charlie Connell from Richmond, VA on 06.06.06 at 10:07
Sadly, I found out about the event a day too late from a friend who is in AIGA. I am sorry I missed it as it seemed excellent! I plan on making the next one in June. I look forward to that highlight reel as I’ve been trying to wrap my head around EE for some time.
Posted by Carl T. Holscher from Richmond, VA on 06.12.06 at 9:01
Sorry you missed it, Carl. We’ll get that highlight reel up here eventually. Not sure how much how much help it will prove to be—I tried to make the presentation more about the process than the specifics. Here’s some great resources for getting going with Expression Engine that may help, though.
EE Docs—An obvious first place to start
The EE Knowledge Blog
Some video tutorials
EE Wiki
The pMachine fourms (probably the best source for help)
Good luck!
Posted by Phil Hertzler from Richmond on 06.21.06 at 10:26
Phil,
Your talk was great. Even I as a non-technical type person (albeit with a high geek factor) understood most of what you talked about. It reinforced the importance of educating the web community about these things, as well as marketing people such as myself, so we can continue to bring the best of new technology to our clients. Thanks for doing it!
Posted by Cristina Del Bueno from Richmond, VA on 06.05.06 at 6:33