THEY’RE SLEEPING in New York. They’re sleeping all over the world. Even here in Leiden, The Netherlands, they’re still mumbling and drooling in their beds. But not me. I’m awake and packing for my return home to NYC after three glorious days here in this ancient university town, where I was privileged to speak at the first Inspire conference. And all you got were these lousy photos.

• Holland 2012 Inspire – my Leiden and conference photos on Flickr
• Ready to Inspire – conference about web design, type and code
• Follow inspireconf on Twitter
• My Leiden – a Foursquare list
• City of Leiden homepage
• Leiden on Wikipedia

Related: Design Problem

Filed under: cities, conferences, Design, glamorous, people, photography, Travel, Zeldman

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HARD TO BELIEVE, but it was ten years ago that I first heard Lawrence Lessig give a talk at SXSWi about an idea he had to save content from death by copyright law.

At the time, copyright law and digital creativity were at odds, and tens of thousands of cultural artifacts were disappearing from the commons because of the Mickey Mouse Protection Act, a copyright extension pushed through congress by the late Sonny Bono at the behest of the Disney corporation. Corey Doctorow, one of Lessig’s partners on the SXSW panel, memorably likened the destruction to the slow motion burning of the Library of Alexandria.

But Lessig had a plan. And, remarkably, it worked: “For a decade now, Creative Commons has made legal sharing and remixing easier for everyone. After ten years, it has become the default third way.”

Let’s help this good work continue. Please donate to Creative Commons if you can.

Filed under: conferences, content, copyright, creativity, Culture, Design

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HELLO FROM LONDON, where I’m visiting family and friends, speaking at Future of Web Apps, and exploring this magical city.

• Pete Zeldman
• London – a list on Foursquare (in progress)
• London October 2012 – photo set on Flickr (in progress)
• #fowa on Twitter
• #fowa on Instagram
• Future of Web Apps – London

Filed under: cities, conferences, London

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THE YEAR Brooklyn Beta opened, a misunderstanding and a coincidentally timed paying gig prevented me from attending. The following year, two paying gigs, scheduled back to back, kept me away. This year was going to be different. This year I cleared my decks. This year there were no gigs, no client meetings, no major medical procedures scheduled for the three days that the internet descends on Brooklyn. This year I was definitely attending.

Then this family thing came up and I can’t go. Nobody’s sick, nobody’s injured, nobody’s mentally or emotionally or spiritually treading water, but my presence and attention are required in Manhattan for huge swathes of the day. Which means, although friends I adore and see too rarely are a mere five subway stops away, I cannot be with them now.

I hope Brooklyn Beta continues for a thousand years, and I hope I can attend for at least one of them. I hope this isn’t a thing—like it was a thing for years that when Apple updated its Macintosh operating system, I was certain to be one of the 0.001% of users who suffered from some strange edge-case problem as a direct consequence. I hope there isn’t a betting pool on the odds of my attending Brooklyn Beta, although I have visions of one bespectacled design nerd slipping another a fiver on their receiving news of my non-attendance. Most of all, I hope everyone attending has a great time. See you next year, maybe.

Filed under: conferences, events, glamorous

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I’M OFF to Lisbon, Portugal, for Refresh LX, “an affordable conference for busy web designers.” See you soon!

Filed under: air travel, conferences, Design, Web Design, Zeldman

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HEY, FRIENDS. I write from the magical city of Chicago, where I’m enjoying the first Happy Cog Summit. Next week, following our meet-up cum strategy session cum karaoke party, comes An Event Apart Chicago, three days of peace, love, and web standards (plus more Chicago magic).

I won’t be writing here much while these events continue, but I’ve started a Chicago 2012 photo slide show for your pleasure, and will add to it as time and aesthetics permit. You can also stalk me via my new Foursquare Chicago list.

Once An Event Apart kicks in, starting Monday August 27, and until it ends Wednesday night, August 29, I’ll post links and notes here—and you can follow the hot tweet-by-tweet action on A Feed Apart, the official feed aggregator for An Event Apart. Yowee!

• Stalk me! JZ’s Foursquare Chicago list
• Chicago 2012 photo slide show
• Happy Cog
• An Event Apart Chicago
• A Feed Apart

Filed under: An Event Apart, business, Chicago, cities, client services, conferences, Design, Happy Cog™

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AT AN EVENT APART Boston, “Scott Jehl discussed ways we can improve web performance by qualifying capabilities and being smart about how assets are loaded in browsers [and] shared a … new tools he helped create that can help address these issues.”

Enjoy Luke Wroblewski’s notes on Scott’s talk.

Filed under: An Event Apart, conferences, content, Content First, HTML, Responsive Web Design

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HI, [REDACTED]. Thanks for writing to express your concern about my failure to redeem my Google IO promo code. It’s kind of a funny story.

I received a Google IO invitation (copied and pasted below) but didn’t follow up on it because the invitation did not say anything about what Google IO is, who it is for, or why I would want to attend it (if it is an event) or use it (if it is software) or do something else with it (if it is something else).

The Google IO invitation merely gave me complicated directions to sign up for Google IO, no doubt on the assumption that I would gladly attend, download, or sign up for anything that comes from Google, even without knowing what it is; and that, as an unemployed millionaire, I would have plenty of free time to decipher and obey complicated sign-up directions without knowing anything about the product, service, or event.

One of the complexities Google mentions in their invitation letter which fails to explain anything about the product or service they want me to sign up for is that, to qualify for Google IO, I must start a Google+ account. They don’t explain what Google+ is, either, but as it happens, I already have a Google+ account.

My Google+ account is assigned to my Gmail address. But instead of writing to me there, Google wrote to me at my zeldman.com address. My zeldman.com address is actually managed via Gmail, so I should be able to log into my Google+ account whether I am signed in as my Gmail identity or my zeldman.com identity, but Google+ doesn’t work that way. Google+ only works for free Gmail accounts. It does not work for paid corporate accounts like mine. That has always seemed an odd decision to me: if you can only provide services to a subgroup of your users, why not choose the subgroup that pays? But I am not Google.

So Google wrote to my zeldman.com address, which they won’t allow me to associate with my Google+ address, to invite me to start a Google+ account (which I already have) on my zeldman.com account, which they won’t support. And if I do that (which I can’t), and some other complicated stuff, they promise that I will then be able to participate in Google IO, whatever that is.

And now they have written to warn me that my Google IO, whatever it is, will stop being offered if I don’t sign up (which I can’t) right away. And they even convinced you, my friend, to send a personal note ensuring that I don’t miss the opportunity to sign up for their unspecified product or service with the account they don’t support before the unexplained offer is terminated.

While I should be curious about Google IO and what I will miss if I fail to take advantage of the cumbersome offer, what I’m actually far more curious about is how an organization that can’t write an effective direct marketing email message has managed to become one of the most powerful corporations of the 21st century.

Hello,

We recently sent you an invitation to register for Google I/O 2012 and noticed that you have not redeemed your promo code, which will expire at midnight PDT on March 25.

[ How to register ]
1. Make sure you have a Google+ account as it is required to register. Get Google+ at http://www.google.com/+
2. Visit the registration page at

https://developers.google.com/events/register/promocode?code=[REDACTED]

3. Use Promo Code: [REDACTED]. This code can only be used once.

[ Tips to Ensure Successful Payment With Google Wallet ]

1. Make sure your Google Wallet account is tied to the same Google+ account you use to register.

2. In case your bank declines your purchase through Google Wallet, you may need to call the bank that issued your credit card and let them know that you want to make a large purchase. Some banks may decline large purchases that appear to be out of your normal purchase behavior.

3. If Google Wallet is not available in your country, please email googleio2012@google.com to have our support team process your payment.

[ Tips to Ensure Successful Registration With Google+ ]

1. Sign into your Google+ account before you try to redeem your code.

2. To ensure you have created a Google+ account, log into your Google account and go to https://plus.google.com/. If you land on a page asking you “To join, create a public Google profile.” then you don’t yet have a Google+ account and follow the instructions to create one.

3. If you have multiple Google accounts, be sure to sign out of all Google accounts and sign in with only your Google+ enabled account.

4. You can use a personal or company managed Google+ enabled account to complete your registration.

If you have any questions, please email googleio2012@google.com.

Sincerely,
The Google I/O Team

Filed under: business, conferences, Design, events, Google, Marketing, Slow-witted Trolls, The Essentials, Usability, User Experience, UX

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IN HER PRESENTATION at An Event Apart in Atlanta, GA 2011 Kristina Halvorson talked about how to integrate content strategy into a typical Web design worksflow. Here’s my notes from her talk: LukeW | An Event Apart: A Content Strategy Roadmap.

Filed under: An Event Apart, conferences, content, content strategy

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“IN HER PRESENTATION at An Event Apart in Atlanta, GA 2011 Sarah Parmenter discussed how principles from human psychology can reframe how we think about Web Design. Here’s my notes from her talk:” An Event Apart: Crafting the User Experience.

Filed under: An Event Apart, conferences, Design, Web Design

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