Where’s Russ? (Spring 2009 Presentation Schedule)

Written by Russ on February 18, 2009 – 12:51 am

Now that the heavy lifting for the book is pretty much complete (from the author perspective, of course), I have a few things that I need to get moving on.  Spring is going to be busy and fun, and I fully expect to learn a lot.  As of this posting, March and April are pretty busy months, and if you happen to be around at any of these places, please stop by and say hello!

South by Southwest (SXSW)
Austin, TX
March 13 – 17

I will be presenting a “Salon” with my good friend, David Armano, on Saturday, March 14th, from 6:30 – 7:30 pm at the Downtown Austin Hilton.  We will be presenting on the topic of “Friendship is Dead”, discussing how the proliferation of social networks have impacted what it means to be called a “friend” these days–is the world getting bigger and smaller at the same time?.

Apparently the Salon is a new thing for SXSW, and they’ll be providing some food and drinks (can’t say as to whether or not those will be alcoholic beverages, but with a sponsor like Miller Lite, we can all hope–especially the two of us who happen to be presenting!).

Information Architecture Summit
Memphis, TN
March 20-22

Also on March 18th, with Mario Bourque, presenting the workshop, “Career Workshop for Information Architects and other User Experience Professionals” from 8:30 – 12:30.

In addition, I’m on the “Evolve or Die” panel with Christina Wodtke, Josh Porter and Gene Smith (all of whom are, to some degree or another, in a bit of a hero light–and coincidentally, also Peachpit Authors).  Swing by and hear my dystopian view on Little IA, if you’re so inclined.  We must, after all, evolve, or we shall, indeed, die. Or at least become something a lot more like a commodity. Meh. Who has time for that type of boredom?

And, finally, to round off a tour of BBQ, Elvis, Sun Studios and beer-drinking goats (trust me, you’ll see), I’ll be giving my talk on “Selling IA/UX: Heuristic Evaluation for the Pitch Process” in which I’ll spend a little time engaging a crowd of 2s of people to discuss how low-hanging fruit can not only help you better engage your own teams, but how it can be a nice packageable deliverable for your pitch process.  Bonus: I’m going to give you a template to work in, as well! Yay!

Voices That Matter: Web Design Conference
San Francisco, CA
April 27 – 30

Early Bird pricing is through March 12, which is $200 off the normal price, plus, as my friends, Plus, I have a $200 “Friend of a Speaker” code that you can use: WBASPKR

Save some dough, see some insanely smart people and get your learn on!

Carolyn Chandler and I will be at the Voices That Matter: Web Design Conference presenting “Learning to Love Tension, Disruption and Chaos”–three different approaches that can lead to better design.  We’ll also be supporting the release of “A Project Guide to User Experience Design: For User Experience Designers in the Field or in the Making” (you can use the code “UXDESIGN” to save 35% at Peachpit and get free domestic shipping!), and we’ll be there with a great bunch of authors and presenters.  The learning will be fantastic, and I hear that the weather will be, too.

Apparently, I will be spending the next few conferences following around Christina Wodtke & Jared Spool. They’re very good company, and it’ll be nice to see familiar faces while I travel to do a little promotion of the book, as well as highlighting the strengths of Draftfcb’s interactive and digital capabilities.

If you end up attending any of the above, please don’t hesitate to introduce yourself!

I’m also working up a few other presentations that will be nice additions to what’s listed above. More on those later…

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