LOUDER

DeMo Des Moines — February Edition

DeMo Des Moines returns to Startup City Des Moines on Tuesday, February 21 at 4pm.

Not clear on what DeMo is? Check out the recap from January’s event.

You don’t have to register to attend or present, but a heads-up is always appreciated. Hope to see you there.

My BarCamp Cedar Valley Recap

My wife and I road-tripped to the UNI Campus in Cedar Falls this past weekend for BarCamp Cedar Valley. I really enjoyed myself. The audience was my favorite part — there were a lot of energetic, open-minded, and educated people asking good questions and enhancing every presentation with their participation.

Structurally, the event was nearly identical to the Des Moines BarCamp I attended in December. Three tracks (techies, creatives, entrepreneurs), seven speaking slots per track, and only a few spots were left untaken by the end of the day.

Emboldened by my DSM BarCamp experience I marched straight in and was the first sign-up of the day, snagging a 10am slot in the creatives track. I labeled my talk “Getting Started with Markdown”. It was essentially a live demonstration of my writing set-up on OSX using the Markdown text-to-HTML conversion tool in TextMate, with Marked for previewing. It seemed to go over well, and based on discussion throughout the day and on Twitter, I know I convinced at least a few writers in the audience to give Markdown a try.

I put my name down again later in the day for the final speaking spot in the entrepreneurs track. I called it “Don’t Be Sheepish About Your Job Search”. I talked about how I used social tools like Twitter and Storify to share my own job search story and generate leads. Reflecting on what I shared, a better title might have been “Job Hunting for Introverts”.

I felt better about my Markdown presentation than the job search presentation. It was a better fit for the track, and the crowd was larger and more energetic in the AM. I’m still glad I did both, and love how the BarCamp unconference model allows an opportunity to try out new stuff without much pressure.

Cat snagged a mid-day spot in the creatives track as well. She presented “Blogging 201” and shared tips, tricks, and tools she’s learned from being the Managing Editor of Offbeat Home.

I bounced between all three tracks throughout the day. Thoughts from a group conversation about diversity in technology and a presentation about networking and relationship building as a consultant are still bouncing around in my head after the fact.

I stole a little time from our busy weekend to buzz through Cedar Falls’ downtown area before heading home. Wow. It was a remarkably lively area on a late Saturday afternoon. Very cool-looking shops and restaurants. I was particularly impressed with the visual aesthetic of the downtown — nearly every shop, sign, building, and storefront was beautifully designed. I hope to get a chance to visit again with more time to explore the area.

All in all, BarCamp CV was A++, would BarCamp again. I’m very grateful to the organizers and sponsors that made the event possible and the welcoming attitude everyone showed a couple of conference crashers from Des Moines. Hope I can make the next one.

Icon of the Future

I’m still in a prognosticating mood as we enter a new year. I’ve been thinking about the exponential growth in mobile technology and Internet-enabled devices like TV’s and refrigerators. While I’m hot on mobile, I’m not as sure about the custom, TV-based app marketplaces that are being developed. Sure, there will be some victors, and a few of these marketplaces will survive. On the whole, though, I think the future looks a lot more like this:

No, not pixelated cheerleaders, look in the bottom right-hand corner. That’s Apple’s Airplay icon. Attentive iTunes and iOS device owners are likely already familiar with it. Tapping the icon brings up a list like this:

That’s a list of Airplay-enabled devices I can send my Pandora music to. Bam! Over the Wi-Fi, it’s on my iPhone and now it’s on speakers somewhere else in the office. It’s very slick, and feels so natural it seems impossible that’s not where the future is headed. I don’t know how protective Apple will be of that particular icon, but it or something like it will come to represent the way we experience media in the future. 

“TV” is a term that will come to mean a dumb screen capable of receiving media input wirelessly from Internet-enabled personal devices like tablets and phones. Workstations as we understand them today (a monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse) will also be mostly dumb devices on the lookout for input from a device you carry on your person. Your desk will come alive with a tap of your phone, or maybe even just your physical presence. Let’s say right now, today, you could buy an iPad just as powerful as the top of the line Mac desktop. Who wouldn’t want that? Maybe “workstation” or “productivity” will become an app or a mode you enter on personal devices when you need to do more creation than consumption.

I also think manufacturers will stop trying to jam stupid custom app marketplaces and experiences into cars, and arrive at a standard protocol for “powering” your car’s navigation and entertainment systems with your personal device. Anything “smart” in the car will involve information about itself that it offers up to you.

And, in my wildest dreams, all of this media-slinging and device interactivity will become more and more standards driven. I naively dream of a future where any monitor, any input device (keyboard/mouse/trackpad), any set of speakers will happily and easily interact wirelessly with my phone or tablet. We’re getting there.