San Francisco, here you come
San Francisco. California’s jewel. America’s prettiest city. Cool fog and hot startups.
I last left San Francisco on September 10th, 2001. It was a good day for flying. I had gone there to speak. Normally when I present at a conference, I stick around, listening to the other speakers and chatting with attendees. But I saw little of that conference and even less of San Francisco, for accompanying me was she who is now my wife. Even from the heights of Coit Tower, I only had eyes for her.
On October 4–5, 2007, I return to the city by the bay for the fourth and final Event Apart conference of 2007. The schedule of presentations, published Monday, outlines a holistic approach to web design rarely seen on conference stages.
There are sessions on writing the user interface and developing effective content strategies (art direction for words, if you will). Sessions on designing and redesigning brands, adding ’zazz to tired layouts, and creating designs that scale to accommodate a thousand users or millions.
Someone who’s actually done it (and at a big company, yet) will share insights on promoting and nurturing standards adoption in the workplace. We’ll find out how CSS really works and what IE7 means to developers. And we’ll learn how to design and structure forms to maximize accessibility, improve semantics, and allow for more flexible styling.
The world’s foremost expert on the subject will tell us what’s wrong with online video captioning (a concern in our increasingly YouTubed world) and how to do it right. And from one of the founders of the usability movement, we’ll gain clues into how people follow the scent of information—and how that knowledge can help us connect users to the content and functions they seek:
…how the quality of links affects whether users click on them; how longer pages actually help users get where they are going faster; the three types of graphics; how users follow a scent; and four ways your design could be blocking their smell.
An Event Apart San Francisco presents one of our most striking speaker line-ups yet: movers from Google and PayPal, shakers from Apple and A List Apart, passionate leaders and experts, all. Plus two big parties, sponsored by Adobe and (mt) Media Temple, where you can network, job-hunt, swap horror stories and phone numbers, or just boogie the night away. Plus breakfasts, lunches, and snacks on both days, and a dandy bag of swag. All for $795 (reg. $895) during the earlybird savings period through September 7th.
Readers of zeldman.com can take an additional $50 off by using the discount code AEAZELD. Enter that code in the discount coupon area of the registration form to get all of AEA San Francisco for $745. Seating is limited and this opportunity won’t last forever. Don’t leave your seat in San Francisco. Tell your corporate overlord or generous uncle about An Event Apart San Francisco 2007 today.
Tags: aneventapart, aeasf07, design, webdesign, webstandards, conferences, seminars, sanfrancisco
Filed under: An Event Apart, Design, San Francisco, Standards, Zeldman, events, family, glamorous
And a dandy bag of swag, eh? Sounds good to me :)
The event lineup sounds great, as usual.
San Francisco it too far!!! When AEA is going to be in Rome, Italy?
I’d love to see you bring AEA to the midwest (namely St. Louis, I know you already do Chicago). The airfare from St. Louis to Chicago is cheap, but my company would more likely cover the conference if they didn’t have to pay for travel.
Also, are you going to post any audio or video from An Event Apart after the season is over. I like listening to the @media 2006 podcasts but would love to hear the great stuff at AEA.
Gah, i’m pretty peeved about this! I was so excited when I saw you were coming to San Francisco. Perhaps we’ll cross paths at SFO on the 4th when I fly to england!
Oh well, maybe next time.
I went for a flyby tour of the bay with a friend in his small single-engine Moody on September 10, 2001. (http://eichhorns.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?9-2001/A010910-FlyingWithTom)
Little did either of us realize that we wouldn’t have been able to do that the next day, or the next, or the next… and even today, nearly six years later, it would be difficult to do.
Any ideas of when the next conference will be? My company is out of budget for conferences for the rest of the 2007, but I hope the next AEA will be in January, as otherwise, SXSW will take precedence on our limited budget.
About every 7 years I find an excuse to return to San Francisco. The timing is right, so I immediately convinced my corporate overlord to sponsor my visit.
I rarely get a chance to heckle JZ in person.
Hoohah!
Corporate overlord… isn’t that the truth!
I’m going to have to disagree about San Francisco being “California’s jewel” and “America’s prettiest city”.
Surely La Jolla (Spanish for “the jewel”) would be California’s jewel. Likewise, San Diego is well-known as “America’s finest city”, to which “prettiest” can be added with little argument from most people who have experienced it. Or maybe Boston in the fall.
That said, San Francisco is awesome and unique, though in more of a technical, financial, bayside freakish kind of way.
I was a reader of zeldman.com on Aug. 9, when you first announced the SF event … but there wasn’t a discount code mentioned … and I unwittingly hurried to register. Serves me right for not procrastinating (for once).
That aside, I’m greatly looking forward to the Event.
@Tim, we’ve retrospectively discounted your ticket. Thanks for posting and thanks for coming. See you Monday.
bah!
i live in san francisco and was disappointed i couldn’t go to the chicago event. when i first read that it’s coming to SF, i was very excited… until i realized it’s the same week as my wedding and i’ll be out of town! double d’oh!
you’ve made me sad again. i’m almost sad i’m getting married that week… almost. :)
Davide, what a wonderful idea. I love Rome!
We’re beginning to plan for next year. International travel might be in the works. It is too early to say anything definite. Thank you for your thoughts!
@Aaron: We intended to videotape An Event Apart Chicago, but had to scotch that idea, alas. We’re not planning audio podcasts of this year’s events. People love podcasts, to be sure. But I’m not certain the ideas presented at An Event Apart can be adequately reproduced through audio alone.
@Ole: Thanks for sharing that experience!
@Andrew: We’re just beginning to plan 2008. No dates are booked yet. But we’re unlikely to schedule events in January or February, as it’s winter, and the weather is not always a conference planner’s friend. (Even if we scheduled an event in a tropical, snowless paradise, folks traveling there could hit major weather-related delays.)
Hey, nothing wrong with SXSW. Maybe I’ll see you there. (Very different kind of conference. I love them both.)
@Philip: Congratulations to you and your bride. Many happy returns!
Such a nice write-up Jeffrey. We had a blast at AEANYC and Kel and I are really looking forward to spending a few days by the Bay with you, Carrie, Ava and the usual cast of
miscreantsluminaries.AEA San Fran sounds wunderbar! But AEA Chicago is in 3 days and we’re not feeling the love. ; )
Not feeling the love? Are you kidding? I’m so excited I can hardly speak. (Although that would kind of defeat the purpose.)
Corporate overlord… isn’t that the truth!
San Diego is well-known as “America’s finest city”, to which “prettiest” can be added with little argument from most people who have experienced it.
Any ideas of when the next conference will be?
[...] San Francisco, here you come [...]